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FMD400 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Kurt Cobain Write That Pennyroyal Herb Was an Abortive That 'Doesn't Work'? Claim summaries: Pennyroyal tea was a song on Nirvana's 1993 album In Utero.
contextual information: When Nirvana released its song Pennyroyal Tea'' in 1993, lead singer Kurt Cobain said it was about depression, though his notes mentioned how pennyroyal was considered to be an abortifacent. said His notes gained prominence online in June 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court voted to strike down Roe v. Wade via its decision on Planned Parenthood v. Casey, reversing federal abortion protections that had been in place for nearly 50 years. U.S. Supreme Court The internet immediately began speculating on what this meant for people seeking abortions in the country, and whether this would result in many seeking more dangerous methods in order to carry them out. Some referenced the purported uses of the pennyroyal herb: dangerous Pages and pages of Cobains original writings and scribbles were collected in the book Journals, which included diary entries, lyrics, and his musings on various songs he was working on. Under the underlined heading Pennyroyal tea he wrote, [A] herbal abortive it doesnt work you hippie. Journals Journals Cobain is not entirely wrong. Pennyroyal was considered to be an abortifacent, in that it was used to induce abortions, but it was highly dangerous and far removed from our modern scientific methods for carrying out abortions. Pennyroyal Even Benjamin Franklins publishing company included an abortion recipe that featured pennyroyal in its adaptation of a British manual for the colonies in 1748. In an entry about Suppression of the Courses, the manual advises women to drink a Quarter of a Pint of Pennyroyal Water, or Decoction. Benjamin Franklins According to the article, Persephones Seeds: Abortifacients and Contraceptives in Ancient Greek Medicine and Their Recent Scientific Appraisal, published in the Pharmacy in History journal by the University of Wisconsin Press: There is evidence that pennyroyal [] and other medicinal plants were used in Ancient Greece as anti-fertility agents [] These anti-fertility agents, which were administered orally or as vaginal suppositories, may have functioned as early term abortifacents and contraceptives in women. article But modern medical professionals say that using pennyroyal to induce an abortion is dangerous and there is insufficient evidence to show that it actually works. insufficient evidence According to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), Pennyroyal is a flowering plant that was used in folk medicine to induce abortion, alleviate menstrual symptoms, and to treat inflammatory conditions and minor ailments [...] There have been a number of case reports and also several deaths attributed to the use of this botanical. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center According to the United States National Library of Medicine, There is some evidence that pennyroyal oil can cause abortions by causing the uterus to contract. But the dose needed in order to cause an abortion could kill the mother or cause life-long kidney and liver damage. United States National Library of Medicine Given that mentions of the herb have grown since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many are concerned that recent events will result in more people turning to this as a form of abortion. We also know that banning abortions does not necessarily end their occurrence; it only results in more unsafe conditions for carrying out the procedure. know Ultimately, whatever his intention in writing this down in his notes, Cobain seemed to have the correct idea about the abortifacent, and people are strongly warned to not try it at all. We rate this claim as a Correct Attribution. Did Ben Franklin Publish a Recipe in a Math Textbook on How to Induce Abortion? Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/05/16/ben-franklin-abortion-math-textbook/. Accessed 27 June 2022. Do Laws Banning Abortion Actually Decrease the Rate of Abortions? Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/05/20/banning-abortion-decrease-rate/. Accessed 27 June 2022. Journals - Kurt Cobain, Nirvana (Band). Scribd, https://www.scribd.com/document/262983068/Journals-Kurt-Cobain. Accessed 27 June 2022. Live Fact-Checking Updates: US Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade. Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/24/dobbs-supreme-court-roe-wade/. Accessed 27 June 2022. Martoccio, Angie. Nirvanas In Utero: 20 Things You Didnt Know. Rolling Stone, 21 Sept. 2018, https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/nirvana-in-utero-trivia-kurt-cobain-722109/. Accessed 27 June 2022. Nelson, Sarah E. Persephones Seeds: Abortifacients and Contraceptives in Ancient Greek Medicine and Their Recent Scientific Appraisal. Pharmacy in History, vol. 51, no. 2, 2009, pp. 5769, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41112420. Accessed on 27 June 2022. "Pennyroyal." Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/pennyroyal. Accessed 27 June 2022. "Pennyroyal." MedlinePlus Supplements. https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/natural/480.html. Accessed 27 June 2022. | 1 | [
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FMD401 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed former congressman Mark Green as President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Agency for International Development at a time the administration is proposing cuts in foreign aid and a reorganization of the agency. Green was a Republican U.S. representative from Wisconsin from 1999 to 2007, ambassador to Tanzania under former President George W. Bush, and president of the International Republican Institute, where he sought to promote democracy and governance overseas. His term at the main U.S. aid agency starts amid Trump administration plans for a 31 percent cut in the budget of USAID and the State Department, a major refugee crisis spilling into Europe and the Middle East from wars in Syria and Iraq, and famine and drought in parts of Africa that have displaced tens of thousands of people. The agency announced on Thursday the second round of funding for more drought-stricken countries in Africa. Green’s appointment has been widely applauded by development experts and aid groups. “Green’s confirmation is a sign of hope that if we are entering a period of triage when it comes to many USAID programs, we will at least have a responsible actor overseeing this difficult and fraught process, and hopefully one who will stand firm on behalf of his agency’s critical mission,†said Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and a former U.S. Treasury official. Abby Maxman, president of the Oxfam America development group, said Green had a long track record in international development that was needed at a time of “unprecedented global crisis from refugees to hunger and climate changes.†| 1 | [
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FMD402 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Yuri Andropov created a secret plan called Golgotha in 1983. Its aim is to convince the Soviet population that the idea of socialism is the only way for human kind. The whole plan is planned for 30 years. The rebirth of the socialist society will happen during the governance of Vladimir Putin. This theory is supported by a prophecy in the Bible. | 0 | [
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FMD403 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Economists, even conservative ones, have severe problems with Trump s economic policies. They re unrealistic, and he doesn t know what he s talking about according to both liberal and conservative economists. Trump has made a point of not listening to the experts, but the experts know what they re talking about far better than Trump ever will.Stan Veuger, from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was very forthright in his opinion of Trump s ahem economic policy: He doesn t really know what he s talking about, and his policy platform is so incoherent that he has to make claims like that. It sounds like Veuger thinks Trump is making grandiose promises specifically to cover up the fact that he doesn t have a sane economic plan. Knowing Trump, that s exactly what he s doing. It also sounds like Veuger finds it frustrating that Trump won t listen to any experts.Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody s Analytics, and someone both Trump and Hillary have claimed is batting for the other team, gave The Hill his own summary of his analysis of Trump s plan, saying: His growth expectations are not realistic. The economy s potential growth is 2 percent, and to get stronger growth will require immigration reform that provides a path to legalization for the undocumented and a significant increase in skilled legal immigration. He is strongly opposed to this. Trump has bragged that he can increase our GDP from its current 1.4 percent to 4, 5 or even 6 percent, which is just flat ridiculous. He s also adamantly opposed to giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship and, in fact, wants to create a deportation force to get rid of them. He thinks that will open up jobs for Americans and get our economy booming again, but that s a pipe dream.His strong nationalism has made him opposed to allowing more immigrants in, even legally. He believes they ll take Americans jobs, and he s afraid they could be dangerous, too.Trump believes that the economic growth he s promising will pay for the tax cuts he s promising, but it won t happen that way. Zandi says that these plans will cripple the economy and federal revenue. Of course, Trump won t listen, because reasons. What s clear, though, is that the experts who know better than Trump are growing bolder in trashing his concept of economics.Featured image by Spencer Platt via Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD404 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Ben Carson Tell Hurricane Victims 'Homelessness Is A Gift From Heaven'? Claim summaries: An image circulating online attributes an insensitive (and fabricated) quote to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
contextual information: An image circulating online in September 2017 depicted federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson as having a less than charitable viewpoint toward hurricane victims. You see, a hurricane is God's way of saying you are meant to be homeless. So in a sense, your homelessness is a gift from heaven. The photograph was likely from a 7 May 2015 meeting between Carson and community leaders in Baltimore. But there is no record of Carson making that statement about hurricane victims. meeting In a September 2017 interview, Carson said that families who receive federal housing assistance would get help in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which caused significant damage in parts of Texas: interview We will make sure that they're all taken care of. In many cases where things have been destroyed, we'll have to go to some transitional housing first. But yes, we'll be taking care of all of them. Carson has also promised that HUD would be "a rapid, responsible and compassionate agency" in its response. promised A HUD spokesperson told us that around 500,000 homeowners affected by Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Florida currently have mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration. Those homeowners are eligible for a 90-day "foreclosure moratorium." told The caption used in the image of Carson could be a play on a remark he actually did make during a May 2017 interview: interview: I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind. You take somebody that has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they'll be right back up there. And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they'll work their way right back down to the bottom. When asked in September 2015 how he would deal with Hurricane Joaquin, Carson -- then a Republican presidential candidate -- told reporters, "I don't know." told DelReal, Jose A. "Ben Carson Calls Poverty 'a State of Mind' During Interview."
Washington Post. 24 May 2017. NPR. "Harvey Recovery Will Take Time, HUD Secretary Ben Carson Says."
6 September 2017. ABC News. "Ben Carson on How He Would Handle Hurricane Joaquin: 'I Don't Know.'"
30 September 2015. YouTube, uploaded by HUDChannel. "Next Steps for Hurricane Recovery: A Video Message from Secretary Carson."
14 September 2017. https://youtu.be/6kspZTkwz0k | 0 | [
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FMD405 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
contextual information: It's a political fact of life: incumbency has its perks. You're already in a position of power, name recognition is not a problem, and if you're president, your arrival at a venue—whether for campaign reasons or not—is bound to generate headlines. That's the underlying complaint of a tweet sent out on July 5 by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as his presumptive Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, was preparing to join President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One for a campaign trip to North Carolina. "Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Hillary Clinton," Trump said. We wondered if it was true that the trip was going to be made at taxpayer expense. To some degree, it is, and that's out of necessity. The president doesn't stop being president just because he's campaigning for himself or someone else. Even if he flew to a campaign stop on a commercial jet, he would need a host of support services and personnel to keep him connected and in charge, and that doesn't include the requirements for security. Thus, the president always uses Air Force One, which is one of two specially designed Boeing 747s built in 1986 to include a command center, a medical suite, a bedroom, an office, two food preparation galleys, and plenty of room for staff and reporters. It's not cheap to operate. According to CNN, the Air Force reported two years ago that it cost $206,337 an hour to operate the jet. It's not clear what that covers. A General Accounting Office analysis of three overseas presidential trips in 1998 reported an hourly cost of $34,400, which would be $50,700 per hour in 2016 dollars. Technically, if the president makes a campaign trip, the campaign or the political party is supposed to reimburse the government for the use of the plane to some degree. (The full cost is not reimbursed because some of the costs are directly connected to the responsibilities of being president.) These days, the amount is the price of chartering a 737, which is a bit over $11,000 an hour, according to the Washington Post. Prior to 2010, the required reimbursement was nothing more than the cost of a first-class ticket on a commercial airline. When someone travels on behalf of a campaign, such as Clinton and any staffers who might be accompanying her, the accounting can get even more complicated. But how it's calculated by the White House Airlift Operations office isn't known. The government does not release details of how it figures such costs, and that's been a secret going back to the 1970s, according to CNN. The amount is even more complicated when the president mixes business with politics, such as flying somewhere to give a policy speech or performing another official act while also spending time attending a purely political event, such as a fundraiser. (The North Carolina appearance, in contrast, was purely political.) How much taxpayers end up paying when business is mixed with politics isn't clear because, once again, the formula for calculating the share paid by the campaign and the government is secret. The White House Counsel's office makes a determination on how political a trip is, according to Time magazine. Mark Knoller, the CBS News White House correspondent who has been tracking presidential trips for years, noted in a tweet that presidents have repeatedly told the press that such costs will not be revealed. Prior administrations also refused, he noted in a follow-up tweet. But they didn't claim to be the most transparent administrations ever. The closest you can get to an estimate is to see what the campaigns pay the government. For his re-election in 2004, George W. Bush's campaign paid just under $1 million, according to the Post. But that was when the cost was based on a first-class commercial airline ticket. By 2012, after the rules were changed to be based on chartering a 737, Obama spent just over $3 million. In this case, Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin said the campaign will cover its portion of the costs, although he indicated those costs had not been determined. The Trump campaign didn't respond to an email, but Trump is well aware that campaigns are required, by federal law, to reimburse for expenses. During his trip to Scotland last month, Trump went to great lengths to repeatedly state that federal law requires his campaign to pay for everything, even if it's the use of a conference room in Trump Towers, which he said he would gladly let his campaign use for free. "I'm forced, you know, legally, I have to pay myself back," he said. "If I use one of my resorts in the United States and we have a press conference or something, by law I have to pay myself back." Our ruling: Trump said, "Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by Obama and Clinton." How people define a fortune is somewhat subjective, and details about how the costs of using the presidential plane are determined are secret. But based on the information available, it's clear that the campaign is only going to be picking up a small fraction of the $200,000-plus hourly costs of using the plane, with taxpayers footing the bill for the rest. Because Trump's statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, we rate it Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD406 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Dr. Scott Gottlieb, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has outlined measures he would take to untangle his ties to the pharmaceutical industry if confirmed by the Senate. In an ethics disclosure form filed with the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, Gottlieb said he would resign from multiple corporate boards including GlaxoSmithKline Plc and consulting positions. Gottlieb’s financial ties to the healthcare industry are extensive. If confirmed he has agreed to recuse himself from matters in which he has a financial interest and divest his holdings in about 20 mostly small healthcare companies. Gottlieb, 44, is widely expected to be confirmed, though his pharmaceutical ties are likely to be scrutinized by Democrats. For the past decade he has been a partner at New Enterprise Associates, a large venture capital fund with investments in the life sciences. He would also resign from his position at the investment firm T.R. Winston & Co, and said he would not perform any consulting work while running the agency or participate in any matter involving previous clients for a year after last providing services to a client. Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, is viewed favorably by the drug industry. He would be responsible for implementing key elements in the recently passed 21st Century Cures Act, which calls on the agency to streamline the drug approval process. | 1 | [
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FMD407 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Venezuela s critical medicine shortage has spurred medical flea markets, where peddlers offer everything from antibiotics to contraceptives laid out among the traditional fruits and vegetables. The crisis-wrought Latin American nation is heaving under worsening scarcity of drugs, as well as basic foods, due to tanking national production and strict currency controls that crimp imports. The local pharmaceutical association estimates at any given time, there is a shortage of around 85 percent of drugs. Sick Venezuelans often scour pharmacies and send pleas on social media to find treatment. Increasingly, however, they are turning to a flourishing black market offering medicines surreptitiously bought from Venezuelan hospitals or smuggled in from neighboring Colombia. Here I can find the vitamins I need for my memory, said 56-year-old Marisol Salas, who suffered a stroke, as she bought the pills at a small stand at the main bus terminal in the Andean city of San Cristobal. Around her, Venezuelans asked sellers for medicine to control blood pressure as well as birth control pills. People are looking for anticonvulsants a lot recently, said Antuam Lopez, 30, who sells medicine alongside vegetables, and said hospital employees usually provide him with the drugs. Leftist President Nicolas Maduro says resellers are in league with a U.S.-led conspiracy to sabotage socialism and are to blame for medicine shortages. In the middle of a market in the humid and sweltering city of Maracaibo, dozens of boxes full of medicines including antibiotics and pain killers are stacked on top of each other. The packaging is visibly deteriorated: The cases are discolored and some are even dirty. Doctors warn these drugs usually smuggled in from Colombia, a few hours drive from Maracaibo pose risks. We ve found that a lot of them have not been maintained at proper temperatures, warned oncologist Jose Oberto, who leads the Zulia state s doctors association. Still, some Venezuelans feel they have no choice but to rely on contraband medicine. I had to buy medicine from Colombia, and it worried me because the label said hospital use, said retiree Esledy Paez, 62. But they are often prohibitively expensive for Venezuelans, many of whom earn just a handful of dollars a month at the black market rate due to soaring inflation. Norkis Pabon struggled to find antibiotics for her hospitalized husband to prevent his foot injury from worsening due to diabetes. But the treatment costs 900,000 bolivars ($9.43; twice the minimum wage) and I do not know what to do, said Pabon, who is unemployed. | 1 | [
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FMD408 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: If there was ever any doubt that Vladimir Putin orchestrated a complex attack on our democracy with the express goal of getting Donald Trump elected, that s gone now.Recent reports have indicated that Russian hackers managed to breach voter databases and this is important alter data as well as steal the information of nearly 90,000 voters in Illinois alone. The stolen data included drivers license numbers, social security numbers, and other important sensitive information.But it goes much farther than efforts to undermine Americans confidence in our electoral system. The Washington Post reports that the CIA captured Putin s specific instructions to install Donald Trump in the Oval Office:Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi mir Putin s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin s specific instructions on the operation s audacious objectives defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.At that point, the outlines of the Russian assault on the U.S. election were increasingly apparent. Hackers with ties to Russian intelligence services had been rummaging through Democratic Party computer networks, as well as some Republican systems, for more than a year. In July, the FBI had opened an investigation of contacts between Russian officials and Trump associates. And on July 22, nearly 20,000 emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee were dumped online by WikiLeaks.At this point, it is clear that Donald Trump given his repeated attempts to distract from, interfere with, and dismiss the investigation worked with Vladimir Putin in some capacity to undermine our democracy.The only question that remains is when will Republicans grow a pair and impeach the orange traitor?Read the full report here.Featured image via Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD409 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The tax overhaul legislation passed by the U.S. Senate jettisoned a long-held Republican goal of repealing the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT), a move seen as hurting companies that invest heavily in research and development. The Senate’s inclusion of the AMT puts the bill, passed narrowly last Saturday, on a collision course with Republicans in the House of Representatives, whose version would repeal the corporate AMT. House Republicans are calling for the tax to be eliminated in final legislation to be hammered out by a House-Senate conference committee. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, said on Wednesday a final tax bill that congressional Republicans hope to get to President Donald Trump for his signature by the Dec. 25 Christmas holiday likely will not retain the AMT. Here are some details on the impact of the AMT and which companies and industries invest the most in R&D. — The 20 percent corporate AMT is an alternative to the regular corporate income tax in computing taxes owed, designed to limit the benefit of deductions and tax credits, including credits for R&D that are popular with Silicon Valley. — With the top corporate rate now at 35 percent, few wind up paying the AMT. But since congressional Republicans want to cut the tax rate to 20 percent, the AMT could affect many companies. — “Retaining the AMT in reform is even more harmful than it is in its present form,†the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business lobby group said on its website. “This cannot be the intended impact from a Congress who has worked for years to enact a more globally competitive tax code.†— Companies in the U.S. pharmaceutical and medical research industry plowed about 17 percent of total revenue into R&D in their most recent fiscal year, according to Thomson Reuters data. — The software industry and IT services invested 14 percent of revenue in R&D while technology and equipment companies invested 12 percent of their revenue in R&D. — The healthcare services and equipment sector spent 5.6 percent of its revenue on R&D in the most recent fiscal year. — Manufacturers also invest significantly in R&D, with Boeing (BA.N) investing 5 percent of its revenue in R&D last year. — “Research and development is the lifeblood of manufacturing. The NAM supports pro-growth tax reform, and is working with key policymakers to ensure the final bill does not inadvertently harm manufacturing,†said Chris Netram, vice president for tax and domestic economic policy at the National Association of Manufacturers lobby group. | 1 | [
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FMD410 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg erroneously labeled South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham as one of the women of the Senate on Monday.Ginsburg s misstatement came in her remarks upon accepting an Allegheny College award given to her and the late Justice Antonin Scalia for civility in public life. Hours after Justice Neil Gorsuch was sworn in to replace Scalia, Ginsburg took to the podium in calling on lawmakers to work together, but mistakenly identified South Carolina s senior senator as a woman. I thought back to the 1993 confirmation of my nomination to the court the hearing was altogether civil, the vote was 96 to 3. For Justice Scalia, the vote was unanimous, Ginsburg said. Let s hope members of Congress, the members that Allegheny College has already honored Vice President Joe Biden and Senator John McCain, the women of the Senate, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Lindsey Graham let s hope that they and others of goodwill will lead in restoring harmonious work ways. Via: FOX News | 0 | [
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FMD411 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: November 2015 Ads WALL STREET JOURNAL JUST EXPOSED EXACTLY HOW & HOW MUCH IT COST HILLARY To BRIBE The FBI to AVOID CHARGES! Oct 27, 2016 Previous post ELDER PATRIOT – There are no limits to the Clinton’s web of corruption. Even the FBI’s vaunted reputation for integrity has fallen victim to reach of this evil witch with a capital B. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Hillary Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe contributed in excess of $675,500 to the Senate candidacy of the wife of FBI agent Deputy Director Andrew McCabe who oversaw the investigation into her use of an illegal homebrew server that exposed our national secrets to Russian hackers. McAuliffe has been a Democrat operative whose willingness to do the Clinton’s dirty work over a long number of years saw him rewarded with the governorship of Virginia. As governor, McAuliffe recruited the wife of the FBI’s lead investigator to be his party’s senate nominee at the behest of Hillary Clinton who was already being investigated by the FBI.
Acting on the direction of Hillary Clinton, McAuliffe’s PAC contributed $467,500 directly to the Senate Campaign of D. Jill McCabe according to campaign finance records. But, that wasn’t even the extent of the financial support he extended to Jill McCabe. McAuliffe directed the Virginia Democratic Party to support McCabe’s by assuming the costs of her campaign mailers to the tune of another $207,788.
While there are no laws preventing anyone from making or accepting political contributions to the
FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK | 0 | [
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FMD412 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The recording of money exchange between a Russian military intelligence officer and a Serbian military officer was published by a Bulgarian journalist who works with Bellingcat, an anti-Russian propagandist website. Both the website and its founder are discredited for publishing false stories on Skripal poisoning, MH17 and use of chemical weapons in Syria.
NATO used Bellingcat to orchestrate the whole thing because it's livid about Serbia strengthening military ties with Russia (the "visit" of S-400 missile system and buying of Pantsir systems from Russia).
The recording itself is questionable because it was edited, so it is unclear if all parts of the video are showing the same event. | 0 | [
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FMD413 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Are there any coincidences in the quid pro quo world of Obama s Chicago style politics? Here s the link story we posted about Chobani and their naked lesbian ad. The video of their ad can be seen below:New York yogurt manufacturer Chobani just landed a massive U.S. Department of Agriculture contract for school lunches after years of lobbying lawmakers and President Obama on its products.The upstate-New York Greek yogurt maker will be distributing its products to schools nationwide next year as a USDA-approved meat substitute for school lunches, capping off a pilot program in a dozen states made possible by extensive lobbying efforts.Chobani Greek Yogurt first gained approval by the USDA for school lunches in 2013 as part of a pilot program after U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and other New York lawmakers pressured USDA officials to include it in a pilot program for four states. The USDA s typically years-long approval process for new products was miraculously slashed to only about 8 months for Chobani.That pilot program was expanded last year to a dozen states after reportedly positive feedback from students, Syracuse.com reports. After at least three calls from the persistent senator, (U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom) Vilsack helped arranged a Sept. 20, 2012 meeting in Schumer s Capitol Hill office with Kevin Concannon, the key official for food, nutrition and consumer services, the New York Daily News reports.Chobani owner Hamdi Ulukaya was also named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship, which included a closed-press meeting with the president at the White House, according to the Daily Sabah.The special treatment was undoubtedly the result of Ulukaya s savvy political sense.According to a Green Monsters! blog about the original pilot program: Chobani has made a significant financial investment to be at the forefront of this new program and potentially come out as the victor. The New York-based company has already paid $80,000 to Cornerstone Government Affairs to lobby Congress on its behalf. Among its lobbyists are former agricultural department employees.The lobbying firm was also hired following New York Senator Charles Schumer s petition to the USDA asking that Greek yogurt be added school lunch program.The decision on Greek yogurt came rather quickly in just eight months although the agriculture department typically takes years to assess a new product. The tofu industry waited a decade before an ok, reports NY Daily News.Senator Schumer also worked with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York to push the Greek yogurt pilot program through. Both senators see it as a win-win for the children and the diary industry.The financial benefit has the potential to be quite considerable for New York in particular. Five years ago, the New York dairy industry was producing barely any revenue. Now it generates almost 40 percent of the $6.5 billion in U.S. yogurt sales annually. Businessweek magazine has even called upstate New York the Silicon Valley of yogurt. So, after a couple of years of lobbying and a pilot test program, Chobani the top selling Greek yogurt brand in the U.S. landed a contract for schools in all 50 states in April. The initial contract is worth $148,019 for the first two months of the 2015-16 school year, Syracuse.com reports.The government will then seek quarterly bids for the remainder of the school year.Chobani s fast-track to school cafeterias across the U.S. with a contract awarded faster than other companies have even gained approval for their products raises the same question Green Mosters! blogger Kristina Pepelko first raised in 2013: is the National School Lunch Program and the tightened restrictions on school food truly designed to produce healthier students, or are special interest lobbyists driving menu recommendations from Washington, D.C.?Chobani s senior director of nutrition and regulatory affairs, Robert Post, obviously wants the public to believe it s the former. This is an important step that Chobani is taking in its continued mission to bring nutritious, delicious and natural food to all people of all ages, he said in a statement. Allowing children to have healthy and delicious options for their lunch tray ingredients is one of the most important things Chobani can do as a company, and we decided to offer out products at significantly reduced prices as we want to extend our mission beyond our cups and into the communities we live in, Post said.Chobani officials have not disclosed the significantly reduced prices for their products, or the potential value of the new government contract, Syracuse.com reports.Via: EAG News | 0 | [
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FMD414 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: After Bernie Sanders win in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, so many people contributed to his campaign that ActBlue, the fundraising service used by Democratic candidates, is having trouble processing the donations. That s because during his victory speech, Sanders said: I m not going to New York City to host a fundraiser on Wall Street. Instead, I m going to hold a fundraiser right here, right now, across America. My request is please go to BernieSanders.com and contribute. So there it is, that s our fundraiser. Pretty quick, Sanders concluded. That fundraiser brought in more than $5.1 million dollars in one night for Sanders. It was a Yuuuge night for the Democratic candidate.Here is the victory speech that broke the internet:Sanders supporters took to Twitter to complain that their contributions were not going through. Act Blue is doing the best they can to deal with the new flood of donations being sent to Sanders.Huge night! Contributions are processing, receipts are a little delayed. Keep the donations coming!! ActBlue (@actblue) February 10, 2016Our customer service team is always available for support. Just email [email protected] and someone will get back to you. ActBlue (@actblue) February 10, 2016 ActBlue laid out what happened to cause the issues, in a blog post: Last night s spontaneous fundraiser (the one that raised $5.2 million in less than a day) broke our external processor s response systems. That s some amazing grassroots power. Like we said, we over-prepare, so we were ready for that. But the vendor started giving us a previously undocumented error message, which temporarily caused some donors to not move from the please wait page to the confirmation page even though their contributions were already fully processed As a certain hilarious SNL skit pointed out, we all know that Bernie Sanders average campaign donation is $27 dollars. The people-powered campaign has already smashed President Obama s previous record for the highest number of contributions. The fact that people are making smaller donations to Sanders campaign gives the candidate a huge advantage in terms of grassroots fundraising. Since very few people have donated the maximum amount they can, supporters can continue to donate to Sanders campaign throughout the primary season.That might have something to do with why Sanders raised more money than Hillary Clinton s campaign in January. In January, Sanders received $20 million dollars in donations, while Clinton raised $15 million dollars.Rest assured, anxious Berners. The campaign s site is up and running and this shouldn t be a problem anymore. Be happy, this is probably the best problem any candidate could ever have during an election.Featured image from video screenshot via YouTube | 0 | [
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FMD415 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Mary McCormack Hughes has a vivid recollection of the phone call she got 35 years ago this week from Robert Durst, her . “Have you seen Kathie?†he asked. Kathie was Kathleen Durst, Ms. Hughes’s younger sister, who at 29 was in the final months of medical school. Her marriage to Mr. Durst, the eccentric scion of a prominent New York real estate family, had splintered under Mr. Durst’s efforts to control her, repeated rounds of quarreling and, finally, violence. No, Ms. Hughes, said she had responded, but I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Kathie. Mr. Durst cut her off, saying he was going to the police, and abruptly ended the call, she said. Ms. Hughes remembers that as she hung up the phone in her East Side apartment that February evening in 1982, she turned to her husband, Tom Hughes, and said, “I think he killed her. †Today, Mr. Durst, 73, sits in Los Angeles County Jail awaiting trial on a charge of murder — not of Kathie, but of Susan Berman, a confidante who, investigators say, knew his secrets and shielded him from newspaper reporters after his wife vanished. John Lewin, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles, claims that Mr. Durst shot Ms. Berman in the back of her head at her Los Angeles home in December 2000, fearing that she would cooperate with a newly revived investigation into Ms. Durst’s disappearance. Mr. Durst was never charged with his wife’s killing, nor was anyone else. (Ms. Durst’s body has never been recovered.) He and his battery of lawyers have insisted that he did not kill Ms. Berman and does not know what happened to his first wife. Ms. Hughes has not paid much attention to events in Los Angeles. “I think it’s going to be a disaster,†she said, with bitterness, of the coming trial during her first interview in more than three decades, at an Upper East Side apartment building where her sister once lived with Mr. Durst. A large photograph of Kathie Durst dressed in an Annie dress and a hat from the Wild West hung over the fireplace. “Hollywood and publicity,†Ms. Hughes said. “They’re not really interested in my sister — they’re interested in Bob. I just want to find out what happened to my sister. †The obsession nearly destroyed her. Kathie was the youngest daughter and the fifth child of a telephone company representative, who died in 1966, and a working mother. After graduating from high school in New Hyde Park on Long Island, Kathie trained as a dental hygienist and moved to a building owned by the Durst family on the East Side of Manhattan. Mr. Durst oversaw the building and when the two met, there was an instant attraction. “It was a mutual attraction, a chemistry,†Ms. Hughes recalled. “He had a magnetism. Kathie had the same thing. †The Hugheses liked Mr. Durst when he started dating Kathie, then 19, in early 1971. He was nine years older and from another world. His father, Seymour Durst, presided over a Manhattan real estate company whose towers formed the skyline. The Dursts were low key, not the stereotypical developers. For a while, Ms. Hughes said, her sister was unaware just how wealthy the Durst family was. After their second date, Mr. Durst asked Kathie to move with him to Vermont to run a health food store. But after a short time in Vermont, the couple returned to New York, and Mr. Durst resumed working at the family real estate business. They were married in a private ceremony on his birthday, April 12, in 1973. The couple partied at Studio 54, the disco that was a haunt for celebrities and others. They sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and traveled to Thailand. Bob and Kathie socialized with Mary and Tom, even buying a racehorse together from a friend who was a breeder. “He heard it was a tax deduction,†Tom Hughes said. “I think he liked that part of it. †But the Dursts’ relationship took a dark turn after 1976, when Mr. Durst forced his wife to have an abortion. He didn’t want children she did. “That’s when it went south,†Mr. Hughes said. Ms. Durst sought independence, enrolling in nursing school in Danbury, Conn. The couple bought a cottage nearby, on Lake Truesdale in South Salem, N. Y. in northern Westchester County, but also had a on Riverside Drive in Manhattan and rented an apartment on the East Side. After graduating from nursing school, Ms. Durst immediately started medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, hoping to become a pediatrician. “She was excited to be a medical student,†recalled a classmate, Dr. Alicia . “She worked hard. She always took a seat in the front row and took notes. †By 1980, the couple quarreled frequently, Ms. Hughes said, adding that her sister often called her with accounts of their latest fight. Ms. Durst contacted a divorce lawyer. She gathered damaging material about her husband and the Durst family, she told friends and her sister. Mr. Durst has long acknowledged his marijuana use, and his wife used cocaine, according to friends and members of her family. Both had affairs, his and her friends and relatives say. Mr. Durst, they say, cut off her credit cards to keep her close. “Bob’s possessiveness was escalating into physical violence,†said a nursing school classmate of Ms. Durst’s, Eleanor Joy Schwank, during an interview in 2000. “I never witnessed it, but Kathie would call me saying, ‘Bobby is really violent. ’†Mr. Durst, impatient to leave a McCormack family gathering, yanked his wife’s hair, shocking her family, Ms. Hughes said. On another occasion, he stormed into their East Side apartment, where Ms. Durst was talking with friends, and kicked an acquaintance in the face. The man later settled a lawsuit over the episode with Mr. Durst. Three weeks before Ms. Durst disappeared, she was treated at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx for bruises she suffered during an argument with her husband, according to several friends and medical records later recovered by investigators. Ms. Durst told her sister, her friends and virtually anyone who would listen, “If anything happens to me, don’t let Bob get away with it. †Geraldine McInerney, a friend of Ms. Hughes’s, said she had met Ms. Durst at the couple’s East Side apartment on Jan. 29, 1982. Ms. Durst wanted someone she knew to sublet the apartment so that if “the situation between her and Durst became too threatening, she would have an alternative place to stay,†Ms. McInerney said in a 1983 affidavit. It was the last time Ms. McInerney saw her. A week later, Mr. Durst walked into a Manhattan police station to file a missing person’s report. He carried a copy of New York magazine with his father’s picture and the headline “The Men Who Own New York. †Mr. Durst told the police that he had put his wife on a train to Manhattan from Westchester County on Sunday night so that she could attend school the next day. He said he had later spoken to her by phone, after she arrived at their Riverside Drive . Soon, the story was splashed across New York’s tabloids. Mr. Durst, who hired detectives and offered a reward, told his family, friends and the police that his wife might have run away with a drug dealer. Her family found that implausible, since she was only months away from graduating. “She always wanted to take care of children,†Mr. Hughes said. Decades later, in an interview with the producers of the HBO documentary “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,†Mr. Durst acknowledged that much of what he had told the police was a lie. Why did he lie? “I wanted them to leave me alone,†he explained to Mr. Lewin, the Los Angeles prosecutor, during an interrogation after his 2015 arrest in New Orleans on gun charges. “I wasn’t used to somebody questioning my veracity. †Frustrated by what they regarded as a desultory investigation by New York City detectives, Ms. Hughes and a small band of friends became amateur sleuths, tracking sightings of her sister and Mr. Durst and scouring phone records. By March 1982, they were making furtive visits to what they believed was the scene of the crime, the stone cottage at the edge of Lake Truesdale. On one trip, Mr. Hughes found an ominous list in Mr. Durst’s handwriting in a garbage can: “town dump, bridge, dig, boat†and “shovel. †They found Ms. Durst’s diamond earrings in her drawer at the Riverside Drive apartment, which Mr. Durst had told the police she was wearing when she disappeared. To this day, Ms. Hughes is shocked that New York City detectives never searched the cottage. Ms. Hughes and Ms. McInerney pored over pages and pages of phone records from the cottage, the apartments and the Durst Organization that they had gotten from the detectives. Night after night, the two women matched the phone numbers to names until they discovered that Mr. Durst had made collect calls to his family’s business from Ship Bottom, N. J. shortly after his wife vanished. The calls, coupled with the list of words, led them to suspect that Ms. Durst might be buried somewhere in the nearby Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Ms. Hughes and Ms. McInerney borrowed a car and drove the investigating detectives down to Ship Bottom. But the detectives seemed uninterested, Ms. Hughes said, and the case was no longer generating headlines. Mr. Durst was not charged with any crime. Ms. Hughes and her family wrestled with Mr. Durst in Surrogate’s Court for control of Ms. Durst’s estate, but suffered another defeat in 1983. “I was just so fed up,†Ms. Hughes said. “I broke down. I couldn’t do it anymore. †For a long time, she refused to drive a car or even leave her apartment. She focused on her two daughters, whom she had long neglected. In the end, Ms. Hughes was left without answers as to her sister’s fate. But she never lost her conviction about Mr. Durst’s culpability. Ms. Hughes, her husband and Ms. McInerney cooperated with an investigation into Ms. Durst’s disappearance that was started in 2000 by an enterprising State Police investigator, Joe Becerra, only to be disappointed again when the local district attorney did not indict Mr. Durst. In recent years, Ms. Hughes and other members of her family have gone back to Surrogate’s Court to fight Mr. Durst and to have her sister declared dead as of Jan. 31, 1982. Their mother, Ann McCormack, died in May at 102, without knowing what happened to Kathie. “It’s absurd that after 35 years New York has not charged him with murder,†Robert Abrams, whose law firm, Abrams Fensterman, is representing Ms. Durst’s family, said of Mr. Durst. “If they’re not going to do it criminally, we’ll do it civilly. †Whatever happens in Los Angeles, Mr. Durst will return to federal prison to serve the remaining time on a gun conviction. “We want some sort of peace, some answers as to where she’s at,†Ms. Hughes said. “Why couldn’t he just tell us? He has nothing to lose. He’s going to stay in jail. †| 1 | [
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FMD416 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The United Nations called on world powers on Thursday to help arrange the medical evacuation of 500 people, including 167 children, from eastern Ghouta, saying the besieged Damascus suburb has now become a humanitarian emergency . Nine people died in recent weeks waiting for permission from the Syrian government for the sick and wounded to be evacuated from the rebel-held area to hospitals less than an hour drive from the capital, said Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian adviser on Syria. Russia and Iran, as well as the United States and France, pledged to help during the weekly humanitarian meeting, he said. It would be incredible if they cannot deliver a simple evacuation of mainly women and children, a 40-minute drive to Damascus city, Egeland told a news conference in Geneva. We are convinced that we can do the evacuation if we get a green light from the government. We can then negotiate calm with both sides. Dozens of mortar bombs landed on Ghouta, the last major rebel stronghold near Damascus, on Wednesday, a war monitor and a witness said, despite a 48-hour truce proposed by Russia to coincide with the start of peace talks in Geneva. Eastern Ghouta, next door to Damascus, is the eye of the hurricane, it is the epicentre of this conflict. At the moment there are 400,000 people there, Egeland said. In the past two months, U.N. convoys have delivered supplies to only 68,000 of the 400,000 trapped civilians, he said. Our not being able to reach eastern Ghouta for many months in most of areas has now led to an undoubtedly catastrophic situation, Egeland said. Acute malnutrition rates among children there is nearly 12 percent, above the 10 percent emergency threshold, and a five- or six-fold increase since January, he added. In general I would say that no, there is no calm in this de-escalation zone, there is only escalation in this de-escalation zone, Egeland said. That has ended in eastern Ghouta except for (a pause of) two days only, there has been massive loss of civilian life, hundreds and hundreds have been wounded. We need sustained calm to be able to feed 400,000 people who now beyond doubt are in a humanitarian emergency , he said. Civilians in Damascus have also been killed or wounded by mortars coming from eastern Ghouta, he added. In Hassakeh, in northeastern Syria, U.N. aid workers found a desperate situation, Egeland said. They told about children walking around barefoot, recently displaced children, barefoot in the snow and the cold. He hoped that the U.N. Security Council would agree on a resolution allowing cross-border aid to continue to enter Syria, supplying 2.7 million people in rebel-held areas. It is my clear understanding from all members of the Security Council that none wants a break of the pipeline. | 1 | [
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FMD417 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WORLD RELIEF received over $43 million dollars last year from the feds! They are only one of 9 refugee contractors who make money off of each refugee they bring in. The program was started by Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden 35 years ago. It has exploded to be an industry whereby the agency gets paid per refugee so it makes sense for them to try and make the feds take in more and more of these people.THE BIGGER PROBLEM: The taxpayer pays for all of the goodies the refugee gets so World Relief never covers the education, healthcare and many other things that YOU end up paying for!!!The CEO of World Relief and most other agencies all receive a six figure income .YOUR MONEY! SCOTT ARBEITER, WORLD RELIEF S CEO, MAKES $200,000 A YEAR! Arbeiter was on Tucker Carlson tonight trying to explain away how it s ok to take tax dollars from Americans:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lfCv0eQX6cANN CORCORAN OF REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT WATCH:In September, World Relief settled 1,400 refugees through churches and its 26 offices across the country. In the past year, the organization has worked with 9,759 refugees, the largest number of refugees to go through its office since 1999, according to Christianity Today, having partnered with 1,180 congregations.World Relief is one of nine organizations authorized by the federal government to help resettle refugees. Others include Church World Service, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), Episcopal Migration Ministries, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.I laughed at the use of the word authorized as if WR only had to get an authorization (a stamp of approval) and then was completely operating with Christian charity instead of mostly federal tax dollars. This is how they spin the lazy media, never mentioning that this is a business a business that could not function without your money!Incidentally, it is World Relief (a member in good standing of the Christian LEFT) that sent around a memo to staff over a year ago to tell them to not give out any R & P Abstracts for any of you calling looking for the plan for your local community.Checking the most recent Form 990 for World Relief we see that they had a total gift/grants income of $58,487,081 and $42,589,050 was provided by you, the US taxpayer, making their federally-funded share of their budget 73% taxpayer funded.I went back 6 years and their income from you jumped about $11.5 million over that time. That of course correlates with the fact that they placed more refugees into your towns each year and since they are paid by the head, that makes sense.Here is a screen shot of page 9 (this info. is usually on page 9) of World Relief s most recent 990. You can find several years of WR s 990 s here if you want to have a deeper look into their finances. All IRS 501(c)3 organizations are required to make their financial information public, so remember that if you are trying to get Form 990s for a local group. | 0 | [
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FMD418 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: CNN is slowly slipping off the deep end into the pool of corporate-approved fake news with their latest attack on Larry Wilmore. The comedian gave a bit of a roasting to CNN during the recent White House Correspondents Dinner, which seemed to raise the ire of company executives. As retaliation towards Wilmore they cancelled an upcoming May 4th appearance on Don Lemon s evening show that Lemon himself set up with Wilmore.Let s look at this in a very pragmatic context for a moment. Larry Wilmore made an absolutely HUGE buzz in the media when he stood on stage next to our first black president and said Yo, Barry, you did it my nig*a! There was nobody who wasn t talking about this, and having Wilmore on his show to talk about all this would have been a huge win for Lemon. With all this in mind, you can see how Don Lemon wouldn t have been the one who suddenly cancelled the appearance.No, this was from the faceless executives at CNN who wanted to punish a comedian for taking some arguably light, if well deserved, pokes at their growing joke of a news network. There isn t anything Wilmore said which was that serious and hasn t been said before about the network for years now.CNN is here tonight. I ve been watching CNN a long time. Yep. Used to watch it back when it was a news network. I did. What, is it all CNN here tonight?I don t know about you guys, but I can t get enough of that CNN countdown clock. Now we can see exactly when they hit zero in the ratings.Source: Washington PostHe even had a little fun with Don Lemon personally, yet Lemon still invited Wilmore on his own show because he simply got the joke.CNN s excuse for cancelling Wilmore s appearance is that they had to handle the coverage of the Indiana primaries. This was a poor excuse, because the Indiana primaries already ended 24 hours before then. He was never given the offer for a rescheduling either.It s a disturbing precedent to set, especially by one of the big three cable news outlets. Corporate media is becoming more and more consolidated under fewer and fewer owners. If CNN s new policy is to punish individuals who are critical of their increasing bend towards fluff news and false equivalencies, then the last few crumbs of journalistic integrity the network has, as a whole, are about to go completely out the window.Featured image via wikicommons | 0 | [
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FMD419 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Ukraine plans a 12 percent increase in health spending next year to exploit reforms passed last week to raise standards and crack down on corruption in hospitals and surgeries, government ministers told Reuters. Ukrainians die earlier than most Europeans and patients often bribe doctors for treatment or medicine. Kiev s Western backers see healthcare reforms as a test for Ukraine s push for closer ties to the European Union, away from Russia. New legislation will create a national insurance system that pays doctors by the number of patients they have. Hospitals will be paid for services through the new system, rather than receiving lump sums from regional administrations as is now. It also allows patients to choose their doctor for the first time, rather than being tied to the doctor where their residence is registered, a move the government says will encourage medics to improve and gives them less scope to demand backhanders. Health Minister Ulana Suprun said that patients mindsets will also need to change. People in Ukraine think that paying the doctor cash, under the table, is somehow a thank you for the services that are supposed to be provided to them at no cost, she said in an interview. There needs to be a big cultural change as well, so that we teach people that they re not supposed to do that. She cited a survey by the national anti-corruption bureau which found 65 percent of Ukrainians had come across corruption in the past year, of which 68 percent was in healthcare. And Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk told Reuters in an email Ukraine will hike health spending by 12 percent to 114 billion hryvnia ($4.28 billion) in 2018, and is ready for a further increase later because the reform is a government priority. Ukraine has emerged from a steep recession caused by the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of a Russian-backed separatist insurgency in 2014. But the economy is still propped up by a $17.5 billion aid program from the International Monetary Fund that is conditional on reforms and progress in tackling corruption. With no end in sight to the conflict in the Donbass, defense spending accounts for at least 5 percent of GDP. The ministry of finance is one of our biggest supporters, Suprun said of the planned rise in spending. They re big supporters of what we re doing because they re finally going to be able to follow the money all the way down to a patient. Whereas now we hand money out to hospitals and we don t really know what is done with it at that point. A U.S.-born doctor, Suprun moved to Ukraine in the early days of the Maidan demonstrations in November 2013, and wound up treating the gunshot wounds of protesters in the final days of pro-Kremlin leader Viktor Yanukovich s rule. The reforms went through 893 amendments while Suprun says she was targeted by a smear campaign, including by some who questioned whether she had faked her diploma. The new legislation is just the first step, she says, because reform never is easy. People don t want to change. They re used to the system that there is, and there s a lot of people making a lot of money off of this. Healthcare professionals told Reuters they welcomed the reforms. Oleksandr Ivanko, chief doctor at the Kiev Municipal Clinical Hospital, hoped doctors salaries would improve because you cannot motivate them and demand anything while paying a minimum or even humiliating salary. | 1 | [
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FMD420 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is Biden Proposing a 3% Federal Property Tax? Claim summaries: The Democratic presidential candidate has not proposed a 3% property tax.
contextual information: During the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, social media postings repeatedly warned readers that Democratic candidate Joe Biden was planning to impose a 3% federal tax on the value of homes, in addition to any property taxes homeowners were already paying. However, this warning about a Biden-backed federal property tax was unfounded. Property taxes in the U.S. are set and collected at the state, county, and city levels, and the announced Biden Tax Plan includes nothing that could be construed as imposing an additional federal property tax on privately owned homes. The Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy nonprofit, summarizes the Biden tax plan as including the following primary elements applicable to individuals (rather than businesses): it imposes a 12.4 percent Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (Social Security) payroll tax on income earned above $400,000, evenly split between employers and employees. This would create a donut hole in the current Social Security payroll tax, where wages between $137,700, the current wage cap, and $400,000 are not taxed. It reverts the top individual income tax rate for taxable incomes above $400,000 from 37 percent under current law to the pre-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act level of 39.6 percent. It taxes long-term capital gains and qualified dividends at the ordinary income tax rate of 39.6 percent on income above $1 million and eliminates the step-up in basis for capital gains taxation. It caps the tax benefit of itemized deductions to 28 percent of value for those earning more than $400,000, which means that taxpayers earning above that income threshold with tax rates higher than 28 percent would face limited itemized deductions. It restores the Pease limitation on itemized deductions for taxable incomes above $400,000. It phases out the qualified business income deduction (Section 199A) for filers with taxable income above $400,000. It expands the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for childless workers aged 65 and older and provides renewable-energy-related tax credits to individuals. It expands the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) from a maximum of $3,000 in qualified expenses to $8,000 ($16,000 for multiple dependents) and increases the maximum reimbursement rate from 35 percent to 50 percent. For 2021 and as long as economic conditions require, it increases the Child Tax Credit (CTC) from a maximum value of $2,000 to $3,000 for children 17 or younger, while providing a $600 bonus credit for children under 6. The CTC would also be made fully refundable, removing the $2,500 reimbursement threshold and 15 percent phase-in rate. It reestablishes the First-Time Homebuyers Tax Credit, which was originally created during the Great Recession to help the housing market. Biden's homebuyers credit would provide up to $15,000 for first-time homebuyers. It expands the estate and gift tax by restoring the rate and exemption to 2009 levels. Similar analyses of Biden's tax plan by other entities include no mention of a federal property tax. | 0 | [
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FMD421 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Does Glaxo Own the 'Wuhan Lab'? Claim summaries: As a vaccination for COVID-19 starts to roll out, so does the anti-vax misinformation.
contextual information: Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.
In November 2020, as news broke that a vaccination for COVID-19 was being prepared for distribution, a rumor started circulating on social media that the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline owned a laboratory in Wuhan, China—the Wuhan Institute of Virology—where conspiracy theorists falsely maintain the COVID-19 pandemic originated. This rumor, which resembles a game of six degrees of separation, attempts to trace a line from GlaxoSmithKline to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, to billionaire philanthropist and frequent right-wing boogeyman George Soros, and, in some iterations of this rumor, to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.
Here's one version of the rumor that was posted to Twitter: This tweet reads: "The Chinese biological laboratory in Wuhan is owned by Glaxo! Who, by chance, owns Pfizer! (the one who produces the vaccine!) Which, by chance, is managed by Black Rock finances. Who, by chance, manages the finances of the Open Foundation Company (SOROS FOUNDATION)!" This nonsensical game of connect the dots starts with a false assertion. The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline does not own the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research lab in China that has been the center of conspiracy theories since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, is operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and is funded, in large part, by the Chinese government. It is not owned by GlaxoSmithKline or any other private company.
"Over the past 40 years, half of its income has come directly from central-government investment; the rest has been from competitive funding or technology transfer. CAS could not develop without the funding and support of the central government." It's also false to say that GlaxoSmithKline owns the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. While these two companies share some common interests—in 2018, they announced a joint venture that combined their consumer health businesses—they remain two distinct companies. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time: "Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC plan to combine their consumer health-care units and eventually spin off the joint venture, creating the world's largest seller of drugstore staples like Advil and Sensodyne toothpaste. The deal, announced Wednesday, will free up both companies to concentrate on prescription medicines, which tend to be more profitable if also higher risk. The joint venture represents an unexpected conclusion to a yearlong process by Pfizer to shed its consumer business, as it and other pharmaceutical companies focus on higher-margin prescription drugs. While Glaxo has shared that focus, the British drugmaker had remained committed to its consumer business, which its chief executive led before her promotion to the top job last year." This joint venture, however, did not involve one company buying the other.
This rumor appears to have been created with the intent of stirring up confusion and skepticism over the COVID-19 vaccine by connecting pharmaceutical companies to a laboratory in Wuhan, China. GlaxoSmithKline, however, does not own the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Furthermore, claims that COVID-19 was "manufactured," or that it "escaped from" this Chinese lab, are nothing more than baseless conspiracy theories. | 0 | [
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FMD422 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Has 'Fruit of the Loom' Logo Ever Contained a Cornucopia? Claim summaries: The company's alleged cornu-cover-up is "one of the greatest marketing ploys in history," a recent TikTok video claimed.
contextual information: In December 2023, one of the most common examples of the Mandela Effect saw renewed online attention thanks in part to a TikTok video on the topic: that the Fruit of the Loom company logo once contained a cornucopia. The Mandela Effect is generally defined as a "collective misremembering" in which large numbers of people share the same false belief. video generally defined @dimelifting #mandelaeffect #storytime #fypppp #greenscreen original sound - Nicole The TikTok video in question concludes that there has been a massive coverup at the corporate level. The video's creator decries the effect the alleged obfuscation has had on the general public. The cornucopia removal and coverup is "one of the greatest marketing ploys in history," she argued, "but at what cost?" Fervent belief in a Fruit of the Loom cornucopia is not uncommon. A post on Quora captures this viewpoint: post I have a strong opinion about the Fruit of the Loom logo and whether it had a cornucopia or not. I remember seeing a cornucopia in the logo when I was a kid, and I learned what it was from my school. A cornucopia is a horn-shaped basket that is filled with fruits and vegetables, and it symbolizes abundance and prosperity. I think the cornucopia made sense for the Fruit of the Loom brand because it showed that they had a variety of quality products. An image of the purported logo is often shared in defense of this claim: purported logo However, that is a fabrication, not the actual Fruit of the Loom logo. The perception of a cornucopia goes back decades. For example, a 1994 piece in a local Florida paper about the actor, Samuel Wright, who played Sebastian the Crab in "The Little Mermaid" and who also appeared in Fruit of the Loom commercials, repeated the assertion that the logo contained a cornucopia in print: 1994 piece For 19 years, Wright made anywhere from 120-140 television commercials for Fruit of the Loom underwear. And he didn't even wear Fruit of the Looms. He wore skimpy bikini briefs. "My wife is European," he says from a hotel room in Tampa. "She said (cotton underwear) made me look like an old man." Anyhow, Fruit of the Loom's logo was initially a cornucopia swollen with an apple, green grapes, purple grapes, and their green leaves. Wright was the purple grape cluster. And he had to pretend Fruit of the Looms never found them that were great. While the existence of these commercials is factual, one cannot help but note that nobody played a cornucopia in the actual commercial series referenced in this article: these commercials The company has, as well, officially weighed in on the claim. On June 26, 2023, the company tweeted an image from a USA Today crossword puzzle that included the clue "Fruit of the ____ (company that does not, in fact, have a cornucopia in its logo)." It noted that the "Mandela Effect is real," but that the cornucopia claims were false: tweeted The Mandela Effect is real, the cornucopia in our logo is not ? pic.twitter.com/qoiuvemsIy pic.twitter.com/qoiuvemsIy Fruit of the Loom (@FruitOfTheLoom) June 26, 2023 June 26, 2023 The Fruit of the Loom logo has always contained an apple, green grapes, purple grapes, and leaves. Snopes searched archived newspaper advertisements from every decade from the 1910s to the 2020s and could not locate a single one with a cornucopia: Snopes searched newspaper advertisements every decade from the 1910s to the 2020s (Snopes.com) In rebuttal to these facts, at least two major lines of purported evidence have been proffered. In broad terms, these arguments boil down to the claim that there are photographs that show Fruit of the Loom shirts with a logo that includes a cornucopia, and that legal filings related to its trademark describe that company's logo as including a cornucopia. The December TikTok video focused on the former claim. The legal argument is popular on Reddit. video on Reddit While Snopes has no definitive explanation for the purported photographic evidence, we find its use as proof for an official cornucopia logo weak. Of the hundreds of emails received by Snopes, only two discrete images showing shirts with a cornucopia logo have been produced. Both images are allegedly taken from shirts found in thrift stores. Most examples sent to Snopes appear to have their origins in a June 2023 post (above) that went viral in the r/funny subreddit, among other places. The only other example (below) stems from the aforementioned TikTok video: June 2023 post TikTok video The provenance of these photos is unknown, and as a result their utility as evidence is limited. Two shirts on their own do not disprove the mountain of evidence attesting to the lack of cornucopia in the company's official logo. The legal argument presented to Snopes, also proffered on Reddit, is that, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Fruit of the Loom itself described its trademark as containing a cornucopia. on Reddit This misconception stems from the fact that at least one trademark registration document apparently filed by Fruit of the Loom used what is known as design search code 05.09.14 to describe the trademark indicating an image with "Baskets of fruit; Containers of fruit; [or] Cornucopia (horn of plenty)." Reddit posts posit that this document has some legal bearing in the world of intellectual property law. registration document First, this is not the case. The primary goal of these search codes, according to the USPTO, is to identify the most "significant" visual design elements as an aid for prospective applications to search for similar trademarks. While Snopes has no insight into the legal decisions made by Fruit of the Loom in the 1970s, the 05.09.14 example contained in the USPTO database classification manual does share some visual similarity with the Fruit of the Loom logo at issue: significant Second, and more to the point, this document is irrelevant. Filed in 1973, the corporate contact was listed as an office in Manhattan. The application itself was rejected by the USPTO. Whatever this document is, it does not represent the active Fruit of the Loom trademark application. The USPTO challenged the cornucopia-containing application in 1980, apparently rejecting it on clerical grounds. The application was officially canceled in 1988. an office apparently rejecting canceled The active trademark registration, filed in 1981, lists Fruit of the Loom's Kentucky office as its contact and, crucially, does not use database search code 05.09.14. Instead, codes for several other non-cornucopia visual elements are included: active trademark Kentucky office 05.03.08 - More than one leaf, including scattered leaves, bunches of leaves not attached to branches 05.03.25 - Leaf, single; Other leaves 05.09.02 - Grapes 05.09.05 - Apples 05.09.06 - Avocados; Fruits with pits (apricots, peaches, plums, olives and the like) 26.03.02 - Ovals, plain single line; Plain single line ovals Because the document cited in support of the legal argument that Fruit of the Loom's logo once contained a cornucopia is a failed application that was replaced, or superseded, by an application that contained no descriptors of a cornucopia or cornucopia-related images, it also fails as evidence in support of a cornu-cover-up. Because no verified image of a Fruit of the Loom containing a cornucopia exists in print, and because the company has officially stated that its logo has never contained a cornucopia, we rate the claim as 1987 Fruit of the Loom "The Unbustables" TV Commercial. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5fH3ebtFtI. Accessed 5 July 2023. "Did One of the Old Fruit of the Loom Logos Include a Cornucopia?" Quora, https://www.quora.com/Did-one-of-the-old-Fruit-of-the-Loom-logos-include-a-cornucopia. Accessed 5 July 2023. "Fruit of the Loom Detergent Logo 1979." Newspapers.Com, 25 Apr. 1979, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kokomo-tribune-fruit-of-the-loom-det/127691447/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo, 1926." Newspapers.Com, 3 Aug. 1926, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-bridgeport-telegram-fruit-of-the-loo/127688561/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo 1940." Newspapers.Com, 25 Apr. 1940, https://www.newspapers.com/article/intelligencer-journal-fruit-of-the-loom/127688834/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo 1951." Newspapers.Com, 23 Apr. 1951, https://www.newspapers.com/article/lancaster-new-era-fruit-of-the-loom-logo/127689672/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo 1966." Newspapers.Com, 5 June 1966, https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-fruit-of-the-loom-logo-1/127690881/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo 1987." Newspapers.Com, 2 Aug. 1987, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-marion-star-fruit-of-the-loom-logo-1/127691698/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo, 1996." Newspapers.Com, 15 Sept. 1996, https://www.newspapers.com/article/springfield-news-sun-fruit-of-the-loom-l/127692161/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo 2008." Newspapers.Com, 10 Aug. 2008, https://www.newspapers.com/article/green-bay-press-gazette-fruit-of-the-loo/127692306/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo 2011." Newspapers.Com, 16 Jan. 2011, https://www.newspapers.com/article/palladium-item-fruit-of-the-loom-logo-20/127692582/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo 2020." Newspapers.Com, 10 Mar. 2020, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-park-city-daily-news-fruit-of-the-lo/127692838/. "Fruit of the Loom Logo in 1917." Newspapers.Com, 26 Aug. 1917, https://www.newspapers.com/article/detroit-free-press-fruit-of-the-loom-log/127688395/. "Underwear Character Is Still A-Peeling." Newspapers.Com, 14 Oct. 1994, https://www.newspapers.com/article/florida-today-underwear-character-is-sti/127697411/. 15 U.S. Code 1052 - Trademarks Registrable on Principal Register; Concurrent Registration. LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1052. Accessed 3 Jan. 2024. 15 U.S. Code 1068 - Action of Director in Interference, Opposition, and Proceedings for Concurrent Use Registration or for Cancellation. LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1068. Accessed 3 Jan. 2024. Design Search Codes. https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search/design-search-codes. Accessed 3 Jan. 2024. FAQs. Fruit of the Loom, Inc., https://www.fotlinc.com/our-company/faqs/. Accessed 3 Jan. 2024. Trademark Status & Document Retrieval. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73006089&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch. Accessed 3 Jan. 2024. ---. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73317339&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch. Accessed 3 Jan. 2024. USPTO. FRUIT OF THE LOOM - Fruit Of The Loom, Inc. Trademark Registration. USPTO.Report, https://uspto.report/TM/73006089. Accessed 3 Jan. 2024. | 0 | [
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FMD423 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Starbucks and Monsanto are taking legal action against the state of Vermont. Claim summaries: Is Starbucks teaming up with Monsanto to sue the state of Vermont for the right to avoid GMO labels?
contextual information: Starbucks is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a group challenging Vermont over GMO labeling requirements. Starbucks has joined forces with Monsanto to sue the state of Vermont over GMO labeling requirements. In November 2014, a petition claiming that coffee giant Starbucks had "teamed up" with agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto to sue the state of Vermont over a GMO (genetically modified organism) labeling law began to circulate heavily on social media sites. Given the massive popularity of Starbucks and broad concern over genetically modified foods, the petition caused unease among many Starbucks drinkers about whether their daily latte habit was somehow funding big agribusiness bullies. General consumer discomfort with the often unclear links between large corporations, as well as growing distaste for massive food conglomerates, made the claim particularly unsettling to many social media users. Most consumers lack the luxury to make all their own foods and drinks at home, and to some extent, we all place our trust in large companies to do right by their customers in choosing safe ingredients and not abusing their financial strength by bullying less-powerful entities. A quick scan of Twitter reveals widespread belief that Starbucks has suddenly decided to abandon its socially and nutritionally conscious consumer base to join forces with Monsanto, but is that really the case? Most of the chatter points back to the petition, initiated by a group called SumOfUs. On its Facebook about page, SumOfUs describes its mission: "We are a movement of consumers, investors, and workers counterbalancing the power of large corporations to forge a just, sustainable path for the global economy." The relevant petition can be found on the SumOfUs website. Hiding behind the Grocery Manufacturers' Association, Starbucks is part of a lawsuit aiming to block a landmark law that requires genetically modified ingredients to be labeled. Amazingly, they are claiming it's an assault on their corporate right to free speech. Even a local Vermont company, Green Mountain Coffee, has joined in. The quoted portion makes it clear that Starbucks isn't the entity driving the lawsuit at which the petition takes aim. The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a large food industry group of which Starbucks is one of more than 300 members, is the trade organization behind the litigation in question. To call the group "shadowy" is somewhat misleading: GMA has a website that presents their clear stance on the issue of genetically modified foods and labeling, which included a 2014 membership directory openly listing Starbucks and Monsanto as members. The petition explains (in essence) why Starbucks has been singled out among GMA-affiliated companies as a target of consumer pressure: "SumOfUs members have already chipped in to support Vermont's legal defense fund, and we need to keep it up. Monsanto might not care what we think, but Starbucks does. If we can generate enough attention, we can push Starbucks to withdraw its support for the lawsuit, and then force other companies to do the same." Sign the petition to tell Starbucks and Green Mountain Coffee to withdraw their support for the lawsuit against Vermont and stop fighting accurate food labeling. Vermont is a small, entirely rural state with just 600,000 people. It's a classic David and Goliath fight—Vermont vs. Monsanto and Starbucks, some of the most powerful corporations in the world. The petition references Vermont's Act 120, voted upon in April 2014 and signed into law on May 8, 2014. Under the provisions of the new law, Vermont is poised to become the first state to require labeling of all foods containing genetically modified ingredients by July 1, 2016. On June 13, 2014, the GMA issued a press release stating its intent to challenge the law in Vermont, positing that the law was unconstitutional and citing the First Amendment. In its statement, the trade group expressed concern that more states would follow Vermont's lead and adversely affect the food industry by imposing labeling standards that serve no health or safety interest. Today, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), along with the Snack Food Association, International Dairy Foods Association, and the National Association of Manufacturers, filed a complaint in federal district court in Vermont challenging the state's mandatory GMO labeling law. GMA issued the following statement in conjunction with the legal filing: "Vermont's mandatory GMO labeling law—Act 120—is a costly and misguided measure that will set the nation on a path toward a 50-state patchwork of GMO labeling policies that do nothing to advance the health and safety of consumers. Act 120 exceeds the state's authority under the United States Constitution, and in light of this, GMA has filed a complaint in federal district court in Vermont seeking to enjoin this senseless mandate. Act 120 imposes burdensome new speech requirements and restrictions that will affect, by Vermont's count, eight out of every ten foods at the grocery store. Yet Vermont has effectively conceded this law has no basis in health, safety, or science. That is why a number of product categories, including milk, meat, restaurant items, and alcohol, are exempt from the law. This means that many foods containing GMO ingredients will not actually disclose that fact. The First Amendment dictates that when speech is involved, Vermont policymakers cannot merely act as a pass-through for the fads and controversies of the day. It must point to a truly 'governmental' interest, not just a political one. And the Constitution prohibits Vermont from regulating nationwide distribution and labeling practices that facilitate interstate commerce. That is the sole province of the federal government. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency have both the mandate and expertise to incorporate the views of all the stakeholders at each link in the chain from farm to fork." On November 9, 2014, musician Neil Young stated that he was no longer going to patronize Starbucks due to the GMA lawsuit. On November 15, 2014, Starbucks addressed the claims. The coffee chain sent a tweet with a link to a longer statement: "Starbucks is not a part of Monsanto's GMO lawsuit to stop food labeling." The statement indicated that Starbucks asked the petition to be edited to reflect their position and lack of involvement in the lawsuit against the state of Vermont: "Starbucks is not a part of any lawsuit pertaining to GMO labeling, nor have we provided funding for any campaign. And Starbucks is not aligned with Monsanto to stop food labeling or block Vermont State law. The petition claiming that Starbucks is part of this litigation is completely false, and we have asked the petitioners to correct their description of our position. Starbucks has not taken a position on the issue of GMO labeling. As a company with stores and a product presence in every state, we prefer a national solution." Grocery Manufacturers Association spokesman Brian Kennedy said that Starbucks is an "affiliate member" of the GMA and is not involved in actions such as the Vermont lawsuit: "As an affiliate member, [Starbucks] is not involved in any policy, governance, or legal work with the Association, which includes the lawsuit in Vermont." In summary, although Starbucks is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the lawsuit targeted by the petition was initiated by that group and not by Starbucks or Monsanto; and direct collusion between Starbucks and Monsanto on the issue is neither evident nor germane to the dispute between the state of Vermont and the GMA. | 0 | [
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FMD424 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Why Did the FBI Raid the Office of Trump's Lawyer But Not Bill Clinton's? Claim summaries: A meme presents a false equivalency between presidential payoffs to women made in completely different cases 20 years apart.
contextual information: A popular meme in March 2019 questioned why Bill Clinton had "paid Paula Jones $850K to go away" yet the FBI hadn't raided his lawyer's office. The meme was an obvious reference to two completely unrelated issues separated by decades: a 1994 lawsuit involving Clinton and a search warrant executed by the FBI in April 2018 at the office of President Donald Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen. In short, the major differences in the cases referenced by the meme one of which involved an FBI raid on a lawyer's office and the other not were as follows: Clinton openly paid Jones $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit well after he became president and well after Jones had had a chance to air her allegations to the public, press, and court system, while Trump secretly used an intermediary to pay hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels just ahead of a presidential election in order to keep her allegations that she had an affair with him from reaching the public and influencing the election results against him. Nothing Clinton did in settling Jones' civil lawsuit was illegal (or even potentially illegal), but Trump's payment of hush money to Daniels through his lawyer was possibly an illegal act on the part of Trump and/or Cohen, hence the raid on the latter's office but not the office of Clinton's lawyer. On 6 May 1994, Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton just days before the statute of limitations would have expired. In her lawsuit, she maintained that on 8 May 1991, she was working the registration desk at Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the Third Annual Governor's Quality Management Conference was being held, an event Bill Clinton (then governor of Arkansas) attended to deliver a speech. Jones alleged that an Arkansas state trooper, Danny Ferguson, approached her at the registration desk, told her that Clinton would like to meet with her, and escorted her to a business suite in the hotel where Clinton was staying. lawsuit According to Jones, once she entered Clinton's hotel suite he complimented her on her physical appearance, put his hand on her leg, attempted to kiss her on the neck, asked her if she was married, and finally lowered his trousers to expose his erect penis and asked Jones to "kiss it." When Jones rebuffed Clinton's advances, she said, he told her to "keep this between ourselves" and suggested that, in her words, he "could damage her in her job and even jeopardize her employment." Jones did not publicly discuss the incident until The American Spectator referenced it in a January 1994 article, apparently based on information provided by Trooper Ferguson: The American Spectator account asserts that a woman by the name of "Paula" told an unnamed trooper (obviously Defendant Ferguson), who had escorted "Paula" to Clinton's hotel room, that "she was available to be Clinton's regular girlfriend if he so desired," thus implying a consummated and satisfying sexual encounter with Clinton, as well as a willingness to continue a sexual relationship with him. These assertions are untrue. The American Spectator account also asserted that the troopers' 'official' duties included facilitating Clinton's cheating on his wife ... Since Jones ("Paula") was one of the women preyed upon by Clinton and his troopers, including by Defendant Ferguson, in the manner described above, those who read this magazine account could conclude falsely that Jones ("Paula") had a sexual relationship and affair with Clinton. Jones' reputation within her community was thus seriously damaged. Several months later, Jones filed her lawsuit against Clinton and Ferguson, seeking a total of $750,000 in compensation for damages and attorneys' fees on counts of sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and defamation. The issue of whether Jones could sue a sitting president went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, who upheld an appellate court decision that "the President, like all other government officials, is subject to the same laws that apply to all other members of our society," and allowed Jones' case to proceed. However, Judge Susan Webber Wright of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed the lawsuit on 1 April 1998, holding that "the governor's alleged conduct does not constitute sexual assault," that "plaintiff's allegations fall far short of the rigorous standards for establishing a claim of outrage under Arkansas law," that "plaintiff has failed to demonstrate that she has a case worthy of submitting to a jury," and that "there are no genuine issues for trial in this case." dismissed When it came to light a few months later that Clinton had lied under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky during proceedings in Jones' lawsuit, Jones filed an appeal to reverse the dismissal and have her claims reinstated. On 13 November 1998, Clinton settled the matter by offering to pay Jones $850,000 in exchange for her agreement to drop her appeal, without admitting to or apologizing for the conduct alleged by Jones. appeal Porn actress Daniels (the stage name of Stephanie Clifford) said she first met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada in July 2006. The two engaged in sex in Trump's hotel room, she claimed, and continued an "intimate relationship" into the following year. Daniels discussed her relationship with Trump in a 2011 interview for In Touch magazine, but the interview was not published at that time, reportedly because Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue over it when the magazine reached out to ask for comment. threatened In January 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's personal attorney, Cohen, had arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 just weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure agreement related to her alleged 2006 affair with Trump. reported The following month, Cohen confirmed that $130,000 had been paid to Daniels, but he maintained that he had used his personal funds for the payment, and that "Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly." On 5 April 2018, Trump denied to reporters that he knew about the payment to Daniels. When pressed about why the payment had been made, Trump replied, "You'll have to ask Michael Cohen" and asserted he didn't know where the $130,000 had come from. Four days later, acting on a warrant from federal prosecutors in New York's Southern District obtained in part on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller's office, FBI agents seized a variety of material from Cohen's New York City office, home, and hotel room, including documents related to Cohen's payment to Daniels and to Karen McDougal, another woman who had alleged an affair with Trump. denied A month later, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now a member of Trump's legal team, said that Trump had personally repaid Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, and that the reimbursement had been "funneled through a law firm." The following day, Trump contradicted his earlier claim that he didn't know about the payment by acknowledging that he had repaid Cohen, but he asserted the money "had nothing to do with the campaign." Rudy Giuliani contradicted In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges, including five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a financial institution, one count of being a "willful cause" of an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution, the latter two stemming from the "hush money" payments made to Daniels and McDougal. Prosecutors held that the payments made by Cohen violated federal campaign finance laws because they were meant to benefit the campaign but did not come from campaign contributions and were not reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The payments therefore constituted illegal in-kind contributions to the Trump campaign that violated laws limiting such donations to $2,700 and requiring their disclosure to the FEC. Whether Trump himself could be charged with engaging in a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws for his involvement in the hush money payments is still a matter of legal debate, but the issue took a dramatic turn in February 2019 when Cohen revealed before Congress that he was paid reimbursement for the hush money directly from Trump's personal bank account after Trump became president. legal debate revealed "Cohen's public testimony directly implicates Trump in serious campaign finance violations," former FECGeneral Counsel Lawrence Noble told the Washington Post. "Assuming Cohen is telling the truth about the purpose of the checks, the checks are documentary evidence supporting the allegation that Trump had Cohen pay Daniels $135,000 in hush money and then reimbursed Cohen." Washington Post All in all, events proved the FBI had good reason to raid Cohen's office, as they gathered evidence of multiple federal crimes (beyond just campaign finance violations) to which Cohen pleaded guilty. Bill Clinton's payment to Paula Jones was a settlement of a civil lawsuit that did not involve any criminal matter or criminal wrongdoing, and thus it was of no legitimate interest to law enforcement. The only commonality between the two cases was that they involved payments by politicians to women, but for very different reasons and circumstances. federal crimes Dowd, Katie. "Are These the Checks Donald Trump Gave Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels Payment?" San Francisco Chronicle. 27 February 2019. Goodman, Ryan and Andy Wright. "Mueller's Roadmap: Major Takeaways from Cohen and Manafort Filings." Just Security. December 8, 2018 Rupar, Aaron. "What's illegal About Trump's Hush Payments to Women, Briefly Explained." Vox. 12 December 2018. Kelly, Matthew. "In-Kind Contributions Are Boring ... Until Stormy Daniels Gets Involved." OpenSecrets.org. 3 April 2018. Lord, Debbie. "Michael Cohen Plea Deal: How Were Campaign Finance Laws Broken?" The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 22 August 2018. Associated Press. "A Timeline of Key Moments in Trump-Stormy Daniels Saga." 4 May 2018. Kirby, Jen. "A Timeline of Trumpworld's Changing Story on Stormy Daniels." Vox. 4 May 2018. Samuels, Brett. "Timeline: Trump, Cohen, Stormy Daniels and $130,000." The Hill. 4 May 2018. Theobald, Bill. "Why Hush Money Michael Cohen Paid Stormy Daniels Was an Illegal Campaign Donation." USA Today. 14 December 2018. Kirby, Jen and Andrew Prokop. "Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty to 8 Federal Crimes." Vox. 21 August 2018. Stewart, Emily and Dylan Matthews. "The Michael Cohen-Stormy Daniels Subplot, Explained." Vox. 27 February 2019. Chalfant, Morgan. "Prosecutors Submit Redacted Cohen Raid Documents Under Seal, Teeing Up Public Release." The Hill. 28 February 2019. Reuters. "Trump Says He Did Not Know About $130,000 Payment to Stormy Daniels." 5 April 2018. | 0 | [
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FMD425 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Washington (CNN) In an awkward meeting at the White House this month, Mitch McConnell had a message for his adversaries: Democrats had only themselves to blame for the escalating war over the Supreme Court.
McConnell, according to two sources familiar with the session, singled out the four Democrats in the room: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama himself. He said all four of them did something he and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley did not do: Attempt to filibuster Samuel Alito's nomination in 2006, setting a new precedent in the Supreme Court wars.
"You reap what you sow," McConnell said, according to the sources.
In the aftermath of Obama's Wednesday decision to nominate federal judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, Republicans now are planning on setting yet another precedent: Denying confirmation hearings for a nominee, something that has not been done since such proceedings became common practice more than 60 years ago. The hardline has given Democrats ammunition against the GOP-led Senate for treating a qualified nominee unfairly, an argument they plan to make as they try to defeat a handful of vulnerable senators in swing states in November.
But in interviews with CNN, the Republican leadership's resolve to deny a hearing for Obama's pick only seemed to be hardening after the President's announcement. And they got backup from some key at-risk senators, who said that the next president -- not the current one-- should make the Supreme Court choice.
New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, one of the most endangered Republicans this year, said "out of courtesy and respect," she's "open" to meeting with Garland, breaking with McConnell, who opposes scheduling such a visit. But she was firmly in McConnell's camp when it came to whether Garland should be considered by the full Senate.
"I still believe this position is a lifetime appointment and one that will have a consequential impact on the country and the Supreme Court for decades to come. So I continue to believe that we should consider the people's view on this by waiting for the confirmation process to go forward after the elections in November," Ayotte said.
Other vulnerable senators, like Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, sided with Ayotte.
Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Reid, said the GOP is taking obstruction to a whole new level.
"Mitch McConnell is the world's most accomplished hypocrite," Jentleson said. "Alito received fair hearings, floor consideration and was confirmed."
The public pressure will begin Thursday when Garland begins to make the rounds on Capitol Hill, as GOP senators are split on whether to even meet with him. It will intensify over the next two weeks in the home states of endangered Republican senators, with protests by activists that they hope can turn into negative media coverage over the GOP's hardline.
Democrats have privately circled July 4 as their target date to get the GOP to crack, before the party conventions that month, the August recess and a brief September session ahead of the November elections.
"I think the Republican leadership position is completely untenable and unsustainable," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut. "Because No. 1, the American people are absolutely fed up with a Senate that is stuck in gridlock and constant paralysis. What I hear most commonly from my constituents is 'why can't you get things done?'"
Some Republicans seemed receptive to that argument.
Sen. Mark Kirk, who faces a tough re-election in the blue state of Illinois, said he will "assess Judge Merrick Garland based on his record and qualifications."
And the Maine moderate, Sen. Susan Collins, who voted in 1997 to put Garland in his current spot as the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said she'd meet with the judge and called on the Judiciary Committee to move forward with hearings.
"I believe the Senate Judiciary Committee should hold a hearing," Collins said. "That would be the normal course."
"I supported him," Roberts said when asked why he voted for him in 1997.
Would he vote for him now?
"It's not about the person," Roberts said, repeating the mantra from this party leadership. "It's about the process. Let the people decide."
Pennsylvania's Toomey, one of the vulnerable Republicans facing a tough re-election in a swing state, dashed from reporters in the Capitol Wednesday, refusing to take questions about Garland and whether he would meet with him. However, in a press release issued by his office, the first-term senator said a confirmation should wait until after the election "to give the American people a more direct voice" in picking a justice.
Another threatened Republican, Portman of Ohio, acknowledged he will face enormous pressure from Democrats and outside groups on the issue but said he still thinks a nominee should wait for a new president.
"I'm sure there will be ads on both sides. This is not about politics. It's about what's best for the country," he said.
Republicans believe it's worth spending some political capital in their standoff with Democrats to prevent a major shift in the direction of the court should the seat of the late Antonin Scalia, a reliable conservative, be filled by a more liberal justice.
The GOP holds a slim 54-46 majority in the Senate and must defend 24 seats in November compared to just 10 for Democrats if they are to maintain the majority. Republicans insist they won't get hurt politically by their defiant stand, arguing voters are more interested in terrorism, national security, jobs and the economy than a Supreme Court vacancy.
"We have a real comfort level in allowing the American people to voice their feelings about the direction of the Supreme Court," said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who chairs the Senate GOP's campaign committee. "We trust the people and we think they will appreciate being given an opportunity to speak first." | 1 | [
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FMD426 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Election crossroads: Socialism or capitalism? Exclusive: Jane Chastain explains impact of Dems' 'living wage' proposal Published: 49 mins ago About | | Archive Jane Chastain is a Southern California-based broadcaster, author and political commentator. Despite her present emphasis on politics, Jane always will be remembered as the nation's first female TV sportscaster, spending 17 years on the sports beat. Jane blogs at JaneChastain.com. She is a pilot who lives on a private runway. Print
Our country is at a crossroads. Never before have we faced such an obvious fork in the road. One road, the one favored by politician Hillary Clinton and her Democratic colleagues, promises to lead us to a socialist utopia. The other, favored by businessman Donald Trump and some of his Republican colleagues, promises to get us back on the road toward free-market capitalism.
It is no secret that most career politicians lean toward a socialist system. In this system they control the lion’s share of our money and, in turn, hand out favors. In this system, they make the major decisions that affect our lives. As the government accumulates more and more power, we invariably end up with less. Statistics show that the longer a politician stays in power, the more of our hard-earned money he or she spends. Yet we keep electing the same people over and over and over again, expecting a different result.
We’ve been headed down the road toward socialism for quite some time, and this could be the last fork in the road we will have to get us back to the free-market system that has given this country the highest standard of living in the world. No, it isn’t perfect, but it works for everyone who is willing to work hard and wants to improve his or her life.
Notice what I didn’t say is “simply willing to work hard.” There is the belief by some that if you simply work hard, you should have what these politicians now call a “living wage” – the income necessary to support a family of four and supply all its basic needs, which is around $85,000 a year in some parts of the country. The Democrats want to replace the minimum wage, which is a training wage, with this living wage. That completely kicks the bottom rungs out from under the economic ladder Americans have traditionally climbed to reach their goals and live independently.
Ideally, it would mean that you could take a job flipping hamburgers and never gain any skills or accept any responsibility, and live as comfortably as the guy or gal who does.
Unfortunately, this so-called living wage will destroy jobs. It will cause companies to automate, and those that cannot will begin moving offshore at an even faster rate.
But this living wage is only part of what the Democrats want to do in the name of fairness.
This, no doubt, appeals to many in this poor economy who have lost all hope, so they are lulled into thinking that the socialist road is much better.
Wages have remained flat for far too long, but the Democrats are proposing raising taxes even higher on businesses and job creators.
Most people simply do not understand that businesses don’t pay taxes. They are passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices. And when the price of the necessary goods and services becomes too high, such as we’ve seen in Obamacare, there is a large outcry. That’s when the government steps in and takes over the means of production and the control of those services. That’s when the door to socialism/communism slams shut.
They tell us if we take this socialist road there is nothing to fear. Our benevolent government will take care of us. They are offering us free college – or almost free loans – in order to get the job we want at a salary we think we deserve. And if we don’t get that job, the government is going to give us free health care, free food and free housing. Under President Hillary, there will be free child care, free preschool and paid family leave. What a country!
If we don’t reach our goals, everything will be OK because Social Security and Medicare will be there to finance our retirement, and if that isn’t enough, the government will put us in a retirement center where we live out the remainder of our years playing checkers or watching television.
What about the fact that Social Security and Medicare are going broke? How long can we keep printing money to keep us afloat before our economy collapses? They never talk about that.
As British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Don’t be fooled: This election is about a lot more than the two personalities at the top of the ticket. It’s an important fork in the road: One fork requires hard work and sacrifice but offers freedom. The other offers a free lunch.
Media wishing to interview Jane Chastain, please contact . Receive Jane Chastain's commentaries in your email BONUS: By signing up for Jane Chastain's alerts, you will also be signed up for news and special offers from WND via email. Name * | 0 | [
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FMD427 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is now the leading candidate to become President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state, but even some Republicans say his tough-guy personality and global business ties may be at odds with international diplomacy. Giuliani, 72, has been one of Trump’s most vocal and high-profile supporters, and according to sources close to him and Trump, he is eager to become the top U.S. diplomat and expects a decision by Trump as early as next week. The other top candidate, the sources said, is former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, a foreign policy hawk. New York mayor at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by al Qaeda militants, Giuliani is also considered a hard-liner on national security matters, but he has little diplomatic experience. Still, some prominent Republicans said he is qualified to take command of U.S. diplomacy at a time of chaos in the Middle East, rising nationalism in much of Europe, and growing challenges from Russia and China. Senator Lindsey Graham, a respected conservative voice on defense and foreign policy who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and who made a rather short-lived bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, on Tuesday called Giuliani “competent and capable†of being secretary of state. “Rudy is an internationally-known figure. He’s a personal friend. He has dealt with the unimaginable, which was 9/11. He’s a loyal supporter of President Trump. He should be rewarded in my view,†Graham told reporters. Giuliani himself extolled his foreign policy credentials in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday. “I’ve been in 80 countries, 150 different foreign trips,†Giuliani said. “A lot of it for different reasons. Speeches. Security consulting, where I helped bring down crime.†Critics, however, said they are troubled not only by Giuliani’s combative nature and lack of experience, but also by his international business ties and his lucrative speaking engagements for an Iranian exile group that was on the U.S. terrorism list until four years ago. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its consideration of Giuliani for secretary of state. After serving as New York mayor for eight years, Giuliani founded management and security consulting firm Giuliani Partners in 2002, which he left in 2007 when he campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination and questions were raised about his foreign business ties. The firm’s clients have included Colombia and, reportedly, the government of Qatar. Giuliani appears to have resumed work with the firm after his 2007 failed presidential bid, and is listed as chairman and chief executive officer of Giuliani Partners on the Giuliani Security and Safety website. He joined a Texas law firm as a name partner in 2005. The firm did lobbying work for Citgo, a U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, which at the time was controlled by President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s late socialist ruler. At the time, Giuliani’s office said he was not personally involved in the lobbying and said Giuliani believed that “Chavez is not a friend of the United States.†Giuliani’s dealings in Russia may face scrutiny in Senate confirmation hearings. His ties to TriGlobal Strategic Ventures, a consulting firm that helps Western clients advance their business interests in emerging markets of the former Soviet Union, date back to 2004, when Giuliani visited Moscow to meet Russian businessmen and politicians, according to the company’s website. The consulting firm’s president, Vitaly Pruss, has “created and developed strategies†for companies including Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft and has “worked closely†with Giuliani Partners, according to his profile on TriGlobal’s website. State-owned Transneft was among Russian oil companies targeted with sanctions by Western powers following Russia’s annexation of Crimea under President Vladimir Putin. Giuliani also has spoken in support of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, a group of Islamic leftists who opposed Iran’s late shah, but fell out with the Shi’ite clerics who took power after the 1979 revolution and later aligned itself with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The U.S. government considered it a terrorist organization until 2012. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who also was a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, told CNN on Tuesday he was worried about Giuliani’s ties to foreign governments.    “Whether or not you have divided loyalties obviously is very important,†Paul said. “I hope Donald Trump will pick somebody consistent with what he said on the campaign trail | 1 | [
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FMD428 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Obama Is Changing the Face of America Claim summaries: Photographs show Muslims praying in the streets of New York City.
contextual information: To those who have not witnessed the spectacle themselves (or have merely viewed photographs of it with no explanatory context), the sight of hundreds of Muslims praying in the middle of Manhattan's streets is likely a startling image. Although the pictures are real, they depict a phenomenon that has been taking place regularly for many years and long antedates the presidency of Barack Obama. Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2010] Not only London, Paris and Barcelona FRIGHTENING SITUATION - OBAMA IS CHANGING THE FACE OF THE USA PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW ON EVERY WEB SITE YOU ALSO CHAT IN. THIS IS NOT A JOKE - IT IS HAPPENING!!! This is an accurate picture of every Friday afternoon in several locations throughout NYC where there are mosques with a largenumber of Muslims that cannot fit into the mosque - They fill the surrounding streets, facing east for a couple of hours betweenabout 2 & 4 p.m. - Besides this one at 42nd St & Madison Ave, there is another, even larger group, at 94th St & 3rd Ave, etc., etc. - Also, I presume, you are aware of the dispute over building another "high rise" Mosque a few blocks from "ground zero" - With regard to that one, the "Imam" refuses to disclose where the $110 million dollars to build it is coming from and there is a lawsuit filed to force disclosure of that information - November can't come soon enough This is in New York City on Madison Avenue, not in France or the Middle East or Yemen or Kenya. Is there a message here???? Yes, there is, and they are claiming America for Allah. If we don't wake up soon, we are going to "politically correct" ourselves right out of our own country! A Christian Nation cannot put up a Christmas scene of the baby Jesus in a public place, but the Muslims can stop normal traffic every Friday afternoon by worshiping in the streets.... Something is happening in America that is reminiscent of what is happening in Europe. This is Political Correctness gone crazy... "For evil to flourish, all that is needed is for good people to do nothing." Edmund Burke These photos originated with New York City's annual American Muslim Day Parade, an event first held in 1985 (long before Barack Obama entered the world of politics) and every year since. As the parade's organizers note of its history: Muslim Day Parade New York City is the capital of the world and center of center of economic, business, social and cultural activities. When it comes to social and cultural activities, it houses many ethnic groups from around the world such as Irish, Italian, Latin, Afro-American, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim. Up until 1985, all these groups were celebrating their ethic and cultural heritage in one form or the other, which included street activities, festivals and parades, with the exception of the Muslims.So, in 1984, a few Muslim brothers got together, thought that when there are so many cultural shows and parades are being held in the City then Muslims should also demonstrate their different cultural beauties along with our Islamic values. Muslim representation in the City and State was zero. So they planned about having a United American Muslim Day Parade in New York City which will provide a platform to the Muslim community in this Tri-State area to get together and join the main stream political arena of this country as we have adopted it as our homeland. We are here for good; our children have to carry on our Islamic Values in the future when we will be gone. Late Zakaullah Pirzada, late Imam Qasim Bakiruddin, late Dr. Abdul Quddus, Br. Mohammad A Munim, Dr. Shafi Bezar, Dr. Rashid Jafar and many others were the founding members who organized and incorporated the Muslim Foundation of America, Inc. in 1984, which is a tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization. MFA Inc. organized its first Muslim Day Parade in 1985 and since then we have been dutifully holding this parade every year on the last Sunday of September. Our parade always has an Islamic theme and a Muslim Grand Marshal. It represents many Muslim nationalities and their cultures. At the end of the parade, we have a bazaar where vendors are selling foods, clothing, books and etc. from different countries. Also included are programs for the kids. The photographs displayed above were taken at the 2009 Muslim Day Parade: As noted above, the event depicted in the four photographs is an annual one, not a weekly one, and the participating group obtains the required parade permits from New York City authorities. | 2 | [
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FMD429 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Hillary Clinton s State Department was one of those agencies which signed off on the deal.Nine shareholders connected to Uranium One contributed a combined $145 million to the Clinton Foundation before or during the time the review took place. Some of those donations were not publicly disclosed at the time, as the Clintons promised they would.The transfer of 20 percent of America s uranium to a Russian-controlled company, first exposed in Clinton Cash and confirmed by the New York Times, has become a central subject of the presidential campaign. Donald Trump has referenced it in his speeches and news media fact checkers have been furiously writing about it.Set aside for a minute how candidates might inartfully describe a complex transaction or the semantic games that might be played by fact checkers. The usually curious news media is going to absurd lengths to pretend that there is nothing here so the issue will go away.Briefly, a Russian government sought federal government approval to purchase a Canadian company called Uranium One which controlled 20 percent of American uranium assets. This required the approval of several federal government agencies, because the deal involved a material (uranium) of national strategic importance.Hillary Clinton s State Department was one of those agencies which signed off on the deal.Nine shareholders connected to Uranium One contributed a combined $145 million to the Clinton Foundation before or during the time the review took place. Some of those donations were not publicly disclosed at the time, as the Clintons promised they would.Read more: Breitbart | 0 | [
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FMD430 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: America s next president could be eased into office not just by TV ads or speeches, but by Google s secret decisions, and no one except for me and perhaps a few other obscure researchers would know how this was accomplished.Research I have been directing in recent years suggests that Google, Inc., has amassed far more power to control elections indeed, to control a wide variety of opinions and beliefs than any company in history has ever had. Google s search algorithm can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more up to 80 percent in some demographic groups with virtually no one knowing they are being manipulated, according to experiments I conducted recently with Ronald E. Robertson.Given that many elections are won by small margins, this gives Google the power, right now, to flip upwards of 25 percent of the national elections worldwide. In the United States, half of our presidential elections have been won by margins under 7.6 percent, and the 2012 election was won by a margin of only 3.9 percent well within Google s control.There are at least three very real scenarios whereby Google perhaps even without its leaders knowledge could shape or even decide the election next year. Whether or not Google executives see it this way, the employees who constantly adjust the search giant s algorithms are manipulating people every minute of every day. The adjustments they make increasingly influence our thinking including, it turns out, our voting preferences.What we call in our research the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) turns out to be one of the largest behavioral effects ever discovered. Our comprehensive new study, just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), includes the results of five experiments we conducted with more than 4,500 participants in two countries. Because SEME is virtually invisible as a form of social influence, because the effect is so large and because there are currently no specific regulations anywhere in the world that would prevent Google from using and abusing this technique, we believe SEME is a serious threat to the democratic system of government.According to Google Trends, at this writing Donald Trump is currently trouncing all other candidates in search activity in 47 of 50 states. Could this activity push him higher in search rankings, and could higher rankings in turn bring him more support? Most definitely depending, that is, on how Google employees choose to adjust numeric weightings in the search algorithm. Google acknowledges adjusting the algorithm 600 times a year, but the process is secret, so what effect Mr. Trump s success will have on how he shows up in Google searches is presumably out of his hands.***Our new research leaves little doubt about whether Google has the ability to control voters. In laboratory and online experiments conducted in the United States, we were able to boost the proportion of people who favored any candidate by between 37 and 63 percent after just one search session. The impact of viewing biased rankings repeatedly over a period of weeks or months would undoubtedly be larger.In our basic experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups in which search rankings favored either Candidate A, Candidate B or neither candidate. Participants were given brief descriptions of each candidate and then asked how much they liked and trusted each candidate and whom they would vote for. Then they were allowed up to 15 minutes to conduct online research on the candidates using a Google-like search engine we created called Kadoodle.Each group had access to the same 30 search results all real search results linking to real web pages from a past election. Only the ordering of the results differed in the three groups. People could click freely on any result or shift between any of five different results pages, just as one can on Google s search engine.When our participants were done searching, we asked them those questions again, and, voil : On all measures, opinions shifted in the direction of the candidate who was favored in the rankings. Trust, liking and voting preferences all shifted predictably.More alarmingly, we also demonstrated this shift with real voters during an actual electoral campaign in an experiment conducted with more than 2,000 eligible, undecided voters throughout India during the 2014 Lok Sabha election there the largest democratic election in history, with more than 800 million eligible voters and 480 million votes ultimately cast. Even here, with real voters who were highly familiar with the candidates and who were being bombarded with campaign rhetoric every day, we showed that search rankings could boost the proportion of people favoring any candidate by more than 20 percent more than 60 percent in some demographic groups.Given how powerful this effect is, it s possible that Google decided the winner of the Indian election. Google s own daily data on election-related search activity (subsequently removed from the Internet, but not before my colleagues and I downloaded the pages) showed that Narendra Modi, the ultimate winner, outscored his rivals in search activity by more than 25 percent for sixty-one consecutive days before the final votes were cast. That high volume of search activity could easily have been generated by higher search rankings for Modi.Google s official comment on SEME research is always the same: Providing relevant answers has been the cornerstone of Google s approach to search from the very beginning. It would undermine the people s trust in our results and company if we were to change course. Could any comment be more meaningless? How does providing relevant answers to election-related questions rule out the possibility of favoring one candidate over another in search rankings? Google s statement seems far short of a blanket denial that it ever puts its finger on the scales.There are three credible scenarios under which Google could easily be flipping elections worldwide as you read this:First, there is the Western Union ScenarioGoogle s executives decide which candidate is best for us and for the company, of course and they fiddle with search rankings accordingly. There is precedent in the United States for this kind of backroom king-making. Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States, was put into office in part because of strong support by Western Union. In the late 1800s, Western Union had a monopoly on communications in America, and just before the election of 1876, the company did its best to assure that only positive news stories about Hayes appeared in newspapers nationwide. It also shared all the telegrams sent by his opponent s campaign staff with Hayes s staff. Perhaps the most effective way to wield political influence in today s high-tech world is to donate money to a candidate and then to use technology to make sure he or she wins. The technology guarantees the win, and the donation guarantees allegiance, which Google has certainly tapped in recent years with the Obama administration.Given Google s strong ties to Democrats, there is reason to suspect that if Google or its employees intervene to favor their candidates, it will be to adjust the search algorithm to favor Hillary Clinton. In 2012, Google and its top executives donated more than $800,000 to Obama but only $37,000 to Romney. At least six top tech officials in the Obama administration, including Megan Smith, the country s chief technology officer, are former Google employees. According to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, since Obama took office, Google representatives have visited the White House ten times as frequently as representatives from comparable companies once a week, on average.Hillary Clinton clearly has Google s support and is well aware of Google s value in elections. In April of this year, she hired a top Google executive, Stephanie Hannon, to serve as her chief technology officer. I don t have any reason to suspect Hannon would use her old connections to aid her candidate, but the fact that she or any other individual with sufficient clout at Google has the power to decide elections threatens to undermine the legitimacy of our electoral system, particularly in close elections.This is, in any case, the most implausible scenario. What company would risk the public outrage and corporate punishment that would follow from being caught manipulating an election? Second, there is the Marius Milner ScenarioA rogue employee at Google who has sufficient password authority or hacking skills makes a few tweaks in the rankings (perhaps after receiving a text message from some old friend who now works on a campaign), and the deed is done. In 2010, when Google got caught sweeping up personal information from unprotected Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries using its Street View vehicles, the entire operation was blamed on one Google employee: software engineer Marius Milner. So they fired him, right? Nope. He s still there, and on LinkedIn he currently identifies his profession as hacker. If, somehow, you have gotten the impression that at least a few of Google s 37,000 employees are every bit as smart as Milner and possess a certain mischievousness well, you are probably right, which is why the rogue employee scenario isn t as far-fetched as it might seem. And third and this is the scariest possibility there is the Algorithm ScenarioUnder this scenario, all of Google s employees are innocent little lambs, but the software is evil. Google s search algorithm is pushing one candidate to the top of rankings because of what the company coyly dismisses as organic search activity by users; it s harmless, you see, because it s all natural. Under this scenario, a computer program is picking our elected officials.To put this another way, our research suggests that no matter how innocent or disinterested Google s employees may be, Google s search algorithm, propelled by user activity, has been determining the outcomes of close elections worldwide for years, with increasing impact every year because of increasing Internet penetration. SEME is powerful precisely because Google is so good at what it does; its search results are generally superb. Having learned that fact over time, we have come to trust those results to a high degree. We have also learned that higher rankings mean better material, which is why 50 percent of our clicks go to the first two items, with more than 90 percent of all clicks going to that precious first search page. Unfortunately, when it comes to elections, that extreme trust we have developed makes us vulnerable to manipulation.In the final days of a campaign, fortunes are spent on media blitzes directed at a handful of counties where swing voters will determine the winners in the all-important swing states. What a waste of resources! The right person at Google could influence those key voters more than any stump speech could; there is no cheaper, more efficient or subtler way to turn swing voters than SEME. SEME also has one eerie advantage over billboards: when people are unaware of a source of influence, they believe they weren t being influenced at all; they believe they made up their own minds.Republicans, take note: A manipulation on Hillary Clinton s behalf would be particularly easy for Google to carry out, because of all the demographic groups we have looked at so far, no group has been more vulnerable to SEME in other words, so blindly trusting of search rankings than moderate Republicans. In a national experiment we conducted in the United States, we were able to shift a whopping 80 percent of moderate Republicans in any direction we chose just by varying search rankings.There are many ways to influence voters more ways than ever these days, thanks to cable television, mobile devices and the Internet. Why be so afraid of Google s search engine? If rankings are so influential, won t all the candidates be using the latest SEO techniques to make sure they rank high?SEO is competitive, as are billboards and TV commercials. No problem there. The problem is that for all practical purposes, there is just one search engine. More than 75 percent of online search in the United States is conducted on Google, and in most other countries that proportion is 90 percent. That means that if Google s CEO, a rogue employee or even just the search algorithm itself favors one candidate, there is no way to counteract that influence. It would be as if Fox News were the only television channel in the country. As Internet penetration grows and more people get their information about candidates online, SEME will become an increasingly powerful form of influence, which means that the programmers and executives who control search engines will also become more powerful.Worse still, our research shows that even when people do notice they are seeing biased search rankings, their voting preferences still shift in the desired directions even more than the preferences of people who are oblivious to the bias. In our national study in the United States, 36 percent of people who were unaware of the rankings bias shifted toward the candidate we chose for them, but 45 percent of those who were aware of the bias also shifted. It s as if the bias was serving as a form of social proof; the search engine clearly prefers one candidate, so that candidate must be the best. (Search results are supposed to be biased, after all; they re supposed to show us what s best, second best, and so on.)Biased rankings are hard for individuals to detect, but what about regulators or election watchdogs? Unfortunately, SEME is easy to hide. The best way to wield this type of influence is to do what Google is becoming better at doing every day: send out customized search results. If search results favoring one candidate were sent only to vulnerable individuals, regulators and watchdogs would be especially hard pressed to find them.For the record, by the way, our experiments meet the gold standards of research in the behavioral sciences: They are randomized (which means people are randomly assigned to different groups), controlled (which means they include groups in which interventions are either present or absent), counterbalanced (which means critical details, such as names, are presented to half the participants in one order and to half in the opposite order) and double-blind (which means that neither the subjects nor anyone who interacts with them has any idea what the hypotheses are or what groups people are assigned to). Our subject pools are diverse, matched as closely as possible to characteristics of a country s electorate. Finally, our recent report in PNAS included four replications; in other words, we showed repeatedly under different conditions and with different groups that SEME is real.Our newest research on SEME, conducted with nearly 4,000 people just before the national elections in the UK this past spring, is looking at ways we might be able to protect people from the manipulation. We found the monster; now we re trying to figure out how to kill it. What we have learned so far is that the only way to protect people from biased search rankings is to break the trust Google has worked so hard to build. When we deliberately mix rankings up, or when we display various kinds of alerts that identify bias, we can suppress SEME to some extent.It s hard to imagine Google ever degrading its product and undermining its credibility in such ways, however. To protect the free and fair election, that might leave only one option, as unpalatable as it might seem: government regulation.Authored by Robert Epstein (@DrREpstein senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology), originally posted at Politico.com Via: Zero Hedge | 0 | [
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FMD431 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: John Kerry's security protection by the Secret Service. Claim summaries: Would the Secret Service have to provide lifetime protection for all of John Kerry's homes?
contextual information: Claim: If John Kerry were elected President, the Secret Service would have to protect him and every property he owns for the rest of his life. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] You will pay upkeep/Secret Service for 5 Kerry mansions. It is good to be John F. Kerry....... The F stands for Forbes in case you ever wondered. He is one of the richest Senators in Government. When someone is elected president, it means the Secret Service has to protect the President and his family as well as his property. The Kerry's have five US properties not counting the several foreign properties they own too. The cost to run these homes are more than what the average American could afford, even if the rent was free, and all you had to pay the water, gas & electric. Including ground keepers, maintenance, pool, and house keepers. To be President would require the taxpayers to pay for all that now if elected. Including a complete staffed Secret Service security 24 hours a day. In addition to that we will have to pay for each of their homes for security improvements even if they never go to them all there is that just in case. Who do you think will pay for all this? We Pay! This takes all the expense off Kerry and puts it on us. Nevertheless, factor another major cost to Americans that Kerry does not want you to know about. Becoming president would automatically include taking care of all their properties with Secret Service Agents that includes 5 agents per 6 hour shift 4 times a day 365 days of the year for the rest of their lives so long as they own those properties. It comes with being President once you are elected. It requires us the taxpayers, to pay for this as well as his annual salary as well as his retirements including the cost of living adjustments to boot. These salaries and agents protect all their real estate property with Secret Service Agents and pay the bills for the rest of his life. In addition, feed the Secret Service Agents and rotate new ones every 6 hours for the rest of his life. Do the math. Five properties need to be protected. This requires five Secret Service Agents per shift, daily every six hours, per property! That is 20 Secret Service Agents per day per property everyday including Holidays. Wow, what does that cost? Lets say an average of 20 agents per property, each earning a about $60K per agent to survey the perimeters and protect. Now times that by five properties so far. That is if the Kerry's do not buy any more properties afterwards. This also includes the Agents vehicles and repairs, gas, meals, days off, paid vacation, and medical plan visits etc per agent. Who pays? YOU pay, the whole time they are alive after becoming President! Is this the best use of our tax money electing Kerry to take care of all their properties both foreign and domestic? On the other hand, shouldn't he pay for his own? Yet, the Presidential salary could not afford it. The more I think about paying for Kerry's properties everyday, just makes me happy keeping President Bush all the more merrier. Without raising taxes to boot. How on earth would Kerry pay for everyone to have Healthcare, increase our military, and have us pay to protect his investments, all without raising our taxes? Tax and spend Kerry is his party motto. Which really has to make you wonder why anyone with his wealth, would take a salary of that of a U.S. Senator, never mind wanna be President? Do you believe him now why he needs to be the Prez? To serve the people? On the other hand, the people serve Him and his wife! IF YOU AREN'T COMPLETELY APPALLED, THEN YOU HAVEN'T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION Origins: The fact that Senator John Kerry's middle name is "Forbes" is about the only piece of information this latest political diatribe gets right. John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, together own several homes, but since they signed a prenuptial agreement and have kept their premarital assets separate, a Boston townhouse (which John Kerry mortgaged in 2003 to finance his presidential bid) is the only one of these homes that they technically own as a couple. The government is obligated to provide Secret Service protection to the President and his immediate family, so if John Kerry were elected to that office, of course he and his family would be entitled to the same level of security detail that the Secret Service provides to every President. That protection might indeed include the use of public funds to pay the costs of installation and maintenance for security systems at some of the Kerrys' homes, because the protection of First Families is viewed as a right and proper charge upon the nation. Security measures of this level would not be specific to the Kerrys; the homes of all Presidents are treated this way, as (to a lesser extent) are the homes of all former Presidents. homes It is not true, however, that every single residence owned by the either of the Kerrys (whether it be in America or abroad) would be staffed by five Secret Service agents around the clock, and that those agents would be guarding the Kerrys and all their properties for the rest of John Kerry's life. Secret Service staffing levels vary as the situation requires, and lifetime protection for former Presidents and their spouses was eliminated by Congressional legislation in 1997. President Clinton and his wife, Hillary, are the last First Couple who will receive such a benefit; President George W. Bush and all who succeed him in the White House will be limited to receiving Secret Service protection for a period of not more than 10 years from the time they leave office. protection In any case, the idea that U.S. voters would have to pay higher taxes if John Kerry were elected President in order to "protect his investments" is just silly. The projected U.S. federal budget for 2005 is $2.4 trillion the amount of money spent to protect the President and his family (whoever that President might be) is but a teeny-tiny fraction of a drop in that vast bucket. The only thing sillier than that notion that taxes would have to be raised to protect a putative President Kerry is the suggestion that the cost of Secret Service protection should be a factor in voters' choosing who should serve as President of the United States. budget For more information about the protection afforded former Presidents, see our article about a similar rumor that was attached to the previous First Couple when President Bill Clinton left office in 2001. article Last updated: 2 October 2004 Sources: Burger, Timothy and Kenneth Bazinet. "Hil and Bill Buy 3M Home, Sweet Home in Capital." [New York] Daily News. 30 December 2000 (p. 6). DeFrank, Thomas. "1st Family's N.Y. Bunker." [New York] Daily News. 14 September 1999 (p. 5). Fuchs, Marek. "First Family's Arrival Changes the Focus of Secret Service Office." The New York Times. 29 October 2000 (Weekend Calendar; p. 5). Grove, Lloyd. "The Reliable Source." The Washington Post. 12 January 2001 (p. C3). | 0 | [
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FMD432 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Home / Badge Abuse / Cop Arrested for Using Police Status to Rape Little Boys at Home for Abused Children Cop Arrested for Using Police Status to Rape Little Boys at Home for Abused Children Matt Agorist November 3, 2016 2 Comments
Santa Rosa County, FL — Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Agent Charles Calvin McMullen was arrested this week after two 8-year-old boys came forward with allegations that the cop repeatedly sodomized and sexually abused them.
According to police, the boys disclosed their information separately and did not know the other was coming forward. #BREAKING : #FDLE agent, Charles C. McMullen arrested, charged with sexual assault/battery on a victim younger than 12 y/o. #C3N #NWFL
— WEAR ABC 3 (@weartv) November 2, 2016
McMullen, who has been with the FDLE for five years, worked on cases with the Gulf Coast Kids House and the Santa Rosa Kids House, centers that advocate for abused children.
McMullen’s position in law enforcement allowed him easy and trusted access to the children and he was able to repeatedly rape the young boys from the time they were only 7-years-old.
The first boy came forward on October 28 to deputies with the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office (SRCSO). After the 8-year-old reported McMullen had been touching him “downstairs on his private part” on a frequent basis, an investigation was launched which led to the other boy coming forward.
According to a report from WEAR,
The child said the abuse began when both children were 7-years-old. He said McMuMullen made them perform sex acts like sticking their fingers in his buttocks, putting their mouth on his penis.
The victim also said McMullen put his penis in the other child’s buttocks at least four times, the last time being October 27. He also disclosed that McMullen made him touch the other victim’s penis.
The first child’s interview detailing McMullen’s abuse mirrored the second child’s. He said some of it happened at McMullen’s home.
The first victim said when he told McMullen he didn’t like to be touched that way, McMullen would stop. However, he’d make the second victim rub his penis.
When McMullen was confronted by investigators, he reportedly began to cry and then denied touching the children sexually.
One of the boys told police that the abuse went on for so long because he was afraid to come forward because McMullen told him not to tell anyone.
He said McMullen told him this was “between you and me” and not to tell anybody because it would break up his relationship, according to the report.
In July of this year, ABC 3 actually interviewed McMullen who was investigating a man for driving around town and exposing himself to little boys.
“There was a residence in Milton that was sharing images and videos of child pornography through their social media platform,” said McMullen in July, likely admiring his fellow sicko. “Mr. Braswell indicated that he did have a sexual attraction towards children. And that he, in the past, had driven around neighborhoods in the Milton community and would expose himself to children as they would walk down the street,” McMullen said.
Since his arrest, McMullen’s bond was set at $1.5 million. However, on Wednesday that amount was reduced to only $300,000. McMullen is currently still receiving his paycheck while on administrative leave. Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit Share | 0 | [
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FMD433 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald J. Trump has reached into Western Michigan royalty to pick Betsy DeVos as his education secretary and is looking at Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meantime, Hillary Clinton has widened her lead in the popular vote to 1. 5 percentage points, a spread not seen for a losing candidate since the disputed election of 1876. Mr. Trump’s choice of Betsy DeVos to be his education secretary brings Western Michigan royalty into the Trump fold, but she was not always a fan. Mrs. DeVos sharply criticized Mr. Trump during the campaign, and spent much of the year raising money for other Republicans on the ballot. “Until we have a better reason to embrace and support the top of the ticket, and see an agenda that is truly an opportunity agenda, then we have lots of other options in which to invest and spend our time helping,†she said in May. The DeVos family, heirs to the Amway fortune, has long been a leading source of money for Republicans in Michigan and beyond. Just in the last three elections before 2016, members of the family gave nearly $9. 5 million to party committees and candidates. Mrs. DeVos had money of her own before she married Richard DeVos Jr. the Amway scion. Her father, Edgar Prince, built his own auto parts supplier, in Holland, Mich. Her brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater USA, a private security contractor whose guards were convicted of killing 14 civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, was quick to voice its opposition to Ms. DeVos. With nominees chosen for C. I. A. national security adviser, secretary of education and ambassador to the United Nations, the next pick is expected to be the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That could be official as early as Friday. Mr. Trump posted on Twitter that he was “seriously considering†Mr. Carson, a former rival in the Republican primaries, as housing secretary. The department is no small corner of the government. Its programs fund public housing, subsidize rent for the poor, promote homeownership and work to revitalize struggling cities. And housing policy has been in a deep freeze since the Great Recession, when the nominally independent mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed and fell under federal control. For nearly a decade, the mortgage industry has basically been government run, with much of its profits going right into the Treasury. Mr. Carson would have a big role in figuring out how to move forward. Writing in the conservative Washington Times last year, Mr. Carson let it be known that he is no fan of government intervention in the housing market, specifically to force racial integration. With new votes tallied from New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland and California, Mrs. Clinton’s popular vote lead reached 2, 017, 563 overnight, prompting new calls for an audit of voting machines in battleground states. Mrs. Clinton’s lead now exceeds the winning percentages of seven presidents, five of whom also won the Electoral College. And it has given rise to a push from liberal activists to demand audits in three states won narrowly by Mr. Trump: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman posted an extensive explanation on Wednesday. Nate Cohn, who wrote of voter projections and analyzed polls for The New York Times, isn’t buying it. Mainly, it would seem, Mrs. Clinton’s record losing lead is pointing toward a structural disadvantage Democrats have with the Electoral College: Their voters are too concentrated in the bright blue states of the West Coast and Northeast. Democrats have now won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections, but lost two of them (Al Gore in 2000, and Mrs. Clinton) in the Electoral College. After the created when Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry started hawking a bracelet worn by Ms. Trump during a “60 Minutes†appearance as part of the new first family, Ivanka and are beginning to disengage. At least on Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere. On Monday, a public letter from Ivanka Trump HQ noted (in part): The separation follows another public letter from the designer Sophie Theallet announcing that she would refrain from dressing Melania Trump and encouraging her fellow designers to do the same. One more such open missive and we will have a new fashion trend. When Anthony Scaramucci, the hedge fund titan and Trump adviser, floated Elton John as an inauguration performer to The New York Post, the singer’s response was swift: No way. He did, after all, say in October, “We need a humanitarian in the White House, not a barbarian. †Pity. Mr. Scaramucci was counting on the diversity statement, telling The Post: Trump has chosen Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, the daughter of Indian immigrants, to be his ambassador to the United Nations, the transition team announced Wednesday. Mr. Trump, whose presidential run was buoyed by an uncompromising stance against immigration, has mostly chosen older white men for cabinet posts in assembling his new team. Her move would eventually elevate South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Henry McMaster, an early and vocal supporter of Mr. Trump’s. Ms. Haley backed Senator Marco Rubio of Florida during the primaries. Mr. Trump arrived on Tuesday night in Florida to celebrate Thanksgiving at his private club, in Palm Beach, a visit intended to give the some time with his family, and he isn’t planning a packed schedule for Wednesday. But officials familiar with the transition process say that he will be busy deliberating his cabinet selections and may announce a domestic appointment before taking a quick break from work. The trip is the first time since Mr. Trump was elected president that he has visited his Florida club, which played host to a few primary night victory parties. President Obama will, for the last time, take part on Wednesday in one of our country’s odder Thanksgiving traditions: the annual pardoning of the turkeys at the White House. Two turkeys, named Tater and Tot, will get the ritual absolution and move on to a nice home at Virginia Tech, even though only one of them will become the official national Thanksgiving turkey. It will be up to President Trump to do the honors — or not, should he choose otherwise — next year. Democrats will try to weigh in legislatively on Mr. Trump’s business holdings next week. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, says he will introduce a “sense of Congress†resolution stating that the new president should convert his substantial holdings in a way to avoid entanglements with foreign governments. If he does not do so, or unless Congress specifically authorizes his conduct, Mr. Trump would be considered in potential violation of the Constitution. The resolution is unlikely to see the light of day in the Senate, but it will be part of what is expected to be a effort by Democrats to shine a light on the ’s business dealings. As Mrs. Clinton’s lead in the popular vote grows, some of her most ardent supporters are clinging to hope that she could still win the election. A Change. org petition has garnered more than four million signatures urging Electoral College “electors†in some states to ignore the will of the voters and back Mrs. Clinton, reminding them that they could do so without any legal penalty. The electors will cast their ballots on Dec. 19. On Twitter, the hashtags #auditthevote and #audittheelection have become rallying cries for supporters of Mrs. Clinton who are directing people to flood the Justice Department with telephone calls about voting irregularities. The push is also taking place on Facebook, where calls are growing for a full investigation into Russia’s role in the election. Even the sister of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, weighed in, noting the tantalizingly slim margin that Mrs. Clinton would need to make up in three swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — to come out on top in the Electoral College. “They are starting to recognize there really is something off about the election results as they come in,†Heba Abedin wrote. “Considering everything that is at stake, a vote audit should be done. †| 1 | [
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FMD434 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The federal tax code has loopholes that are giving incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas.
contextual information: President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have sparred over tax policy for many months. They have argued about the treatment of the middle class, small businesses, and whether the Bush-era tax cuts should be extended for the wealthiest 2 percent. The first presidential debate sparked discussion on a different point—the taxes paid by companies doing business overseas. So far, this topic has not played a prominent role in the campaign, although American-based multinational firms have a significant stake in the outcome. By one conservative estimate, this part of the tax code is worth $30 billion a year. During the debate, Obama tried to score points on Romney by highlighting the tax breaks companies receive when they move jobs overseas. When it comes to our tax code, Gov. Romney and I both agree that our corporate tax rate is too high, so I want to lower it, particularly for manufacturing, taking it down to 25 percent. But I also want to close those loopholes that provide incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas. I want to provide tax breaks for companies that are investing here in the United States. Romney responded, "The idea that you get a break for shipping jobs overseas is simply not the case." In this fact-check, we'll examine the president's statement and ask if there are tax incentives for companies that set up foreign operations. In the narrowest sense possible, Romney's rebuttal is accurate. There is no clause in the tax code that rewards a company when it relocates production beyond U.S. borders. However, if a plant moves at all, whether it's from Ohio to Tennessee or Ohio to Malaysia, it is eligible for deductions. "There is certainly a tax break for U.S. companies that move operations or people abroad," said Gary McGill, director of the Fisher School of Accounting at the University of Florida. "It is simply a business expense like any other legitimate expense." Richard Harvey, a former partner at the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and now at Villanova School of Law, went even further. "A company would be arguably negligent if they did not claim the deductions," Harvey said. In addition, the current tax law allows a tax deduction for the costs of shutting down a U.S. operation. But both tax experts said the moving expenses were trivial compared to the hefty tax savings that companies can realize after they move their operations. There are two provisions in the code that allow them to shelter income from the IRS. Tax break #1: Keeping profits overseas. When an American firm opens a foreign division, it typically sets up a separate company that does not pay U.S. taxes. "That foreign subsidiary is a new entity, organized and created in a foreign country," said McGill, "and is responsible for its own taxes." Profits earned by the subsidiary need not show up on the parent company's tax return. The subsidiary pays taxes in the country where it's located. Those rates are often lower than in the U.S., where the corporate rate is 35 percent. So long as profits remain overseas, U.S. taxes are deferred. The company can declare that none of that money will return to the U.S. McGill, along with colleagues Edmund Outslay and Michael Donohoe, analyzed the public financial statements of Apple and other high-tech companies such as Google and IBM. With Apple, they found the company had built up $23.4 billion in earnings that the company said would stay overseas permanently. And for good reason: Apple was paying an effective tax rate overseas of 1.2 percent on those profits. Tax break #2: Selling to yourself. An American firm with a global network of subsidiaries has another way to trim its tax bill. All of those companies can buy and sell among themselves. It's perfectly legal and very lucrative. Take the example of Google. In just one quarter, the owner of the world's most popular search engine had nearly $2.8 billion in net income, and over half of that came from outside the U.S. That would put Google in good shape regardless, but the foreign earnings would be especially valuable. In 2009, the company's foreign tax rate was 2.4 percent, reported Bloomberg News. Google helped keep its taxes low by licensing its algorithms and other digital innovations to an Irish subsidiary, which then sold advertising around the world. The Irish tax rate on that income was 4 percent. But Google was able to drive its tax bill even lower by creating Google Ireland Holdings, based in Bermuda, where the tax rate is 0.6 percent. The Irish subsidiary sheltered its income by paying royalties to the subsidiary based in Bermuda. These transactions are supposed to cost the same as if they were conducted at arm's length. Harvey, the former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner, said they are anything but. "It is relatively clear most U.S. multinational corporations are aggressively shifting taxable income to low-tax jurisdictions," Harvey said. "I believe that anyone who thinks the IRS can effectively enforce the arm's-length standard is an eternal optimist—or delusional." Tallying the cost. Harvey said the tax tools that multinationals can use give them a competitive advantage over domestic firms. He points to the work of Martin Sullivan, chief economist at Tax Analysts, a nonprofit news service. Sullivan told the House Ways and Means Committee that the tax revenues lost through deferral and transfer pricing were worth between $30 billion and $60 billion a year. Sullivan also noted that American firms with international operations had shed American jobs while increasing their overseas employment. Between 1999 and 2008, U.S. multinational corporations cut their domestic employment by 1.9 million. Over the same period, U.S. multinationals increased their employment overseas by 2.4 million, Sullivan said. But the picture is more complicated than it might seem. There is strong debate over the role that tax rates play in those job shifts. Some analysts, including Harvey, believe the real drivers could be lower wage rates and proximity to important markets around the globe. However, regardless of the initial motivation, once companies make the move, in Sullivan's words, "a toehold of real investment allows a truckload of profit to follow." Our ruling. President Obama said there are loopholes that provide incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas. Independent analysts agree that firms with international operations can take advantage of tax loopholes that domestic firms cannot. The value of these loopholes is in the billions. Such tax laws might not be the deciding factor for companies to locate in foreign countries, but they make that choice more lucrative. We rate the statement True. | 1 | [
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FMD435 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — Federal lawmakers excoriated international sports officials on Tuesday for what they called a bungled response to the Russian doping scandal, with delayed investigations, insufficient sanctions and a lack of interest in rooting out cheating that has tarnished the Olympic brand. During a hearing called by a House subcommittee, Democrats and Republicans chastised representatives of the International Olympic Committee and the World Agency, the regulator of drugs in sports. “What a broken system,†Representative Greg Walden, Republican of Oregon and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said, asking why WADA — to which the United States is the largest national contributor — took years to act on the multiple tips it had received from within Russia, pursuing investigations only after news media reports. “It’s been a quagmire,†Mr. Walden said, criticizing officials’ “indecisive and inconsistent†responses to revelations that some 1, 000 Russian athletes were implicated in doping schemes. Representatives of WADA and the I. O. C. spoke little, weathering relentless criticism with few rebuttals. “At these sort of things, you’re always a little frustrated you can’t say more,†Richard Budgett, the I. O. C. ’s medical and scientific director, said as he prepared to depart. Rob Koehler, the deputy director general of WADA, defended the organization’s response to the scandal, pointing to the independent investigations it had ultimately commissioned, which amassed evidence of the vast scope of Russia’s cheating that the I. O. C. and others are continuing to review. WADA’s president, Craig Reedie, is a member of the I. O. C. until August, he was a top executive with that organization as well. “If you continue to have sport overseeing investigations, overseeing compliance, overseeing itself — it’s the fox guarding the henhouse,†Travis Tygart, the United States’ top antidoping official, told the subcommittee. Mr. Tygart invoked an array of global reforms that he and a coalition of other national antidoping organizations had proposed in August. Most of all, he advocated making the global antidoping regulator more independent of sports organizations, empowering it to be an aggressive policeman. The United States Olympic Committee, which is politicking to host the 2024 Summer Games, had argued against holding a hearing last year, when Mr. Tygart and antidoping authorities from more than a dozen other nations were pressuring the I. O. C. to ban Russia from the 2016 Games after learning the nation’s antidoping lab chief had tampered with scores of urine samples at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Representative Tim Murphy — Republican of Pennsylvania and the chairman of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, which called the hearing — said Tuesday that the inquiry was justified and that Congress’s concern went beyond its $2 million annual contribution to the global regulator. “It isn’t just the money the United States puts into this,†Mr. Murphy said. “If it takes money to motivate things, fine, but the real reason is: I want sports to be fair. †He said he also considered doping a public health issue. Testifying alongside the sports and antidoping authorities were two American Olympic medalists, the swimmer Michael Phelps and the Adam Nelson, who told personal anecdotes. Some lawmakers took photographs of the athletes before and after the charged discussion. Mr. Phelps, the world’s most decorated Olympian, said he did not believe that he had ever competed in a clean field, and he echoed Mr. Tygart’s calls for making the antidoping regulator more independent. Mr. Nelson — who inherited a gold medal roughly a decade after he had competed, once a reporter had informed him that a competitor had been disqualified for doping — said he wanted to ensure officials would not “sweep this under the rug. †He was presented with his gold medal in the food court of an Atlanta airport, a fact numerous representatives seized on, arguing for a ceremony to honor the dozens of athletes who have retroactively won medals because of the rash of doping disqualifications over the last year. Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, drew parallels between Tuesday’s proceeding and hearings called in the early 2000s by the same subcommittee regarding the Salt Lake Olympics corruption scandal, in which American officials had bribed I. O. C. members to win the right to host the 2002 Games. After reading excerpts from an I. O. C. letter on the Russian doping scandal released last week, Ms. DeGette said, “This is the same kind of gobbledygook we got from the I. O. C. then. †In the letter, addressed to various sports organizations, the I. O. C. had sought to differentiate between calling Russia’s widespread cheating “ †and “institutional,†a major point of contention for Russian sports officials who have emphasized that President Vladimir V. Putin and his inner circle were not involved in the coordinated cheating. “They’re looking at angels dancing on the head of a pin, and I don’t even know what they’re talking about,†Ms. DeGette said. “The international sports community needs to realize we’re dealing with Russia and the honor system is simply not going to be enough. †| 1 | [
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FMD436 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Were Pelosi's Daughters Arrested for Breaking Into a Liquor Store for Quarantine Supplies? Claim summaries: A routine review of content labeled satire.
contextual information: On May 11, 2020, Bustatroll.org published an article positing that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughters had been arrested after breaking into a liquor store for quarantine supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic: published article Pelosis Daughters Arrested Breaking Into Liquor Store For Quarantine Supplies The apples dont fall far from the tree, they say, and nowhere is it more obvious than in the case of Nancy Pelosis daughters. Often in trouble, they have lately shown that they share the trait most commonly associated with their mother..a hopeless addiction to alcohol. Both Melissa, 21, and Daphne, 19, were arrested this past weekend in San Francisco, California for breaking and entering. Officers were alerted to their crime by a silent alarm at This Is The Way To Liquor, a liquor store close to their home that had recently decided to temporarily close due to slow sales during the states lockdown. This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows: Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this sites pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if youre still having an issue with that satire thing. It should be noted that Nancy Pelosi has one son and four daughters, but none of Pelosi's children's names are Melissa or Daphne, as stated by Bustatroll.org. The image included in this article actually shows two entirely different women whose names are Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid. The duo became known as the "Peru Two" after they were arrested for drug smuggling in 2013: Peru Two For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor. why Bustatroll.org. "Pelosis Daughters Arrested Breaking Into Liquor Store For Quarantine Supplies."
11 May 2020. Hanlon, Martina. "Peru Two Get Six Years and Eight Months for Drug Smuggling."
Irish Times. 17 December 2013. | 0 | [
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FMD437 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Wow! Did Hannity go too far with Cruz or did he not go far enough?GOP presidential candidate Texas Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and talk radio and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity engaged in a testy exchange over the delegate process on Hannity s radio show on Tuesday.Hannity began the interview by asking, I think the number one question on the minds of Republicans right now is what is going on with the delegates. For example, if you can explain to people that your campaign, that you have every right, within the rules, to talk to candidates, that are pledged on a first ballot, to candidate A or candidate C, you being candidate B. And that tell us what that process is. Cruz answered that isn t what people are concerned about, and are instead concerned about policy issues and beating Democratic candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Cruz further stated that the media loves to obsess about process. This process, and this whining from the Trump campaign is all silly. It s very, very simple . https://youtu.be/En5jPy8SzjUHannity then cut in to say, I m on social media, with millions of people. I have 550 radio stations. And I have the top-rated cable in my hour, all across the board. And I am telling you, that people are telling me, that they find this whole process confusing. He further stated that this wasn t a process question. It s an integrity of the election question. And everybody s asking me this question. So, I want I m giving you an opportunity to explain it. Cruz responded, Sean, the only people asking this question, are the hardcore Donald Trump supporters. Hannity again cut in to ask, Senator, why do you this? Every single time you you ve got to stop. Every time I have you on the air, and I ask a legitimate question, you try to throw this in my face. I m getting sick of it. I ve had you on more than any other candidate, on radio and TV. So, if I ask you, Senator, a legitimate question to explain to the audience, why don t you just answer it? Cruz then said, Sean, can I answer your question without being interrupted? Cruz then talked about the results in Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Wyoming, all of which Cruz has won. He added, Over 1.3 million people voted in those 5 states. We won all 5. All of this noise and complaining and whining has come from the Trump campaign, because they don t like the fact that they ve 5 elections in a row, that Republicans are uniting behind our campaign. So, they re screaming, on Drudge, and it s getting echoed, this notion of voterless election. It is nonsense. They are making it up. Over 1.3 million people voted. We won landslides in all 5. Cruz continued, Now, there is a second component, beyond the elections, which is the individual delegates are elected by the people. Donald Trump s campaign does not know how to organize on the grassroots. And so, when the delegates are elected, conservative activists, real conservative activists show up, and they elect delegates, and we are winning those elections over and over and over again. The Donald Trump campaign doesn t know what they re doing. They don t show up. In Colorado, the Donald Trump team was handing out flyers asking their supporters to vote for a slate of delegates, they included Cruz delegates on their slate. They just they didn t even know how type up a piece of paper without getting it wrong. In Washington state, when Washington state elected their delegates, three days before the election, the Donald Trump campaign, in a panic, realized Washington state was getting ready to elect their delegates. They sent out an emergency email to their Washington supporters, but they screwed up, and sent it to their Washington, DC supporters, instead of their Washington state supporters. I cannot help that the Donald Trump campaign does not seem capable of running a lemonade stand. Elections are won by voters and grassroots activists showing up and voting for the candidate they support. Via: Breitbart News | 0 | [
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FMD438 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: CDC Vaccination Profile Claim summaries: E-mail solicits recipients to create CDC Vaccination Profiles.
contextual information: Phishing bait: E-mail solicits recipients to create CDC Vaccination Profiles. Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2009] CDC [[email protected]] You have received this e-mail because of the launching of State Vaccination H1N1 Program. You need to create your personal H1N1 (swine flu) Vaccination Profile on the cdc.gov website. The Vaccination is not obligatory, but every person that has reached the age of 18 has to have his personal Vaccination Profile on the cdc.gov site. This profile has to be created both for the vaccinated people and the not-vaccinated ones. This profile is used for the registering system of vaccinated and not-vaccinated people. Create your Personal H1N1 Vaccination Profile using the link: create personal profile Origins: Swine flu is currently a strong concern among many people, especially with the vaccine's being difficult to obtain in many places. Therefore, an e-mail like the one displayed above (which was spammed to many recipients in December 2009), seemingly originating with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and informing readers that they must go to the CDC's web site to create a "Personal H1N1 Vaccination Profile," was bound to catch people's attention. However, this message is just a phishing lure and did not originate with the CDC: That organization does not send out unsolicited e-mail, there is no requirement that everyone under 18 register a personal vaccination profile with the CDC, and the return address on the messages uses an apparently non-existent domain (cdcdelivery.gov). Clicking through on the "create personal profile" link provided takes the user to a phony CDC look-alike site within the .IM (Isle of Man) domain, which offers a page that includes a "Download Archive" link which (if clicked) triggers an executable file: Activating that file results in the installation of malwarewhich gives scammers access to the user's computer: malware The link provided in the email takes you to a very convincing imitation of a CDC web page where you are given a temporary ID and a link to your "vaccination profile." The link is in fact to an executable file that contains a copy of a Trojan most commonly identified as Zbot. This Trojan once installed on your PC, this Trojan will create a security-free gateway on your system and will proceed to download and install additional malware without your authorization. It also enables a remote hacker to take complete control of your computer. This malware can log your typed keystrokes and send confidential personal and financial data (including banking information, credit card numbers, and website passwords) to a remote hacker. The CDC has posted a notice on its web site advising that: notice CDC has received reports of fraudulent emails (phishing) referencing a CDC sponsored State Vaccination Program. The messages request that users must create a personal H1N1 (swine flu) Vaccination Profile on the cdc.gov website. The message then states that anyone that has reached the age of 18 has to have his/her personal Vaccination Profile on the cdc.gov site. The CDC has NOT implemented a state vaccination program requiring registration on www.cdc.gov. Users that click on the email are at risk of having malicious code installed on their system. Last updated: 1 December 2009 | 0 | [
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FMD439 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Corporate entities are paying a lot less taxes this year than they have in the past. Part of that is from a loophole in a bill that was passed in 2015.
contextual information: Many Missouri lawmakers are worried about the estimated $456 million budget gap for fiscal year 2018. By law, thegovernment cannot approve an unbalanced budget. Although the state has made some cuts, more work still needs to be done. That has lawmakers looking for answers as to why state revenues have dropped. Rep. Kip Kendrick, D-Columbia, was interviewed by KMIZ's Joey Parker on This Week, on Jan. 20. Kendrick stated why he believes the budget gap is so large. If you look at the budget right now, income tax collection is right where it was projected, the same with sales tax collection, he said. What is down significantly is corporate income tax collection. Corporate entities are paying a lot less taxes this year than they have in the past. Part of that is from a loophole in a bill that was passed in 2015, but it is also some special interest tax cuts that we keep giving out over and over, and it has made it all but impossible to fund our states priorities. We wanted to check out Kendricks claim that corporate entities are paying a lot less in taxes and if they are, why? Budgeted vs. actual revenues The first half of Kendricks statement is easy to verify. Overall, the state of Missouri collected less corporate income taxes and about the same amount of individual income tax and sales tax when comparing the collected year-to-date revenue from Fiscal Year 2016 to 2017. According to the latest monthly general revenue report released Feb. 2from the Office of Administration Division of Budget and Planning, individual income tax and sales tax both grew around 3 percent. However, corporate tax income collections are significantly down compared to last year. In FY 2016, the state collected about $272 million. In FY 2017, it collected only $193 million, which is a 29 percent decrease or about $78 million less. Source: Missouri Office of Administration/Division of Budget & Planning Note that these are collections year-to-date, comparing the collections as of Jan. 31 for FY 2016 to FY 2017. The fiscal year for 2017 runs until June 30, so we wont know the full accounting until then. Corporate tax income from the tax deadline on April 18 could make up the difference. However, evenGov. Greitens proposed FY 2018 budget, which still has to be approved by the Missouri legislature, projected a $97 million decrease in corporate tax income for FY 2017. So what we do know supports Kendricks point: Income tax collection is right where is was projected, the same with sales tax collection. What is down significantly is corporate income tax collection. Missouri business climate The second half of his claim is trickier to pin down: Corporate entities are paying a lot less taxes this year than they have in the past. Part of that is from a loophole in a bill that was passed in 2015, but it is also some special interest tax cuts that we keep giving out over and over, and it has made it all but impossible to fund our states priorities. First, is there another explanation as to why the corporate tax collections are low? There could be fewer businesses in the state, or these businesses could have generated less income. The Missouri Department of Economic Development tracks the number of businesses in the state. Because the 2016 data are only available through the third quarter, the department provided data in an email for the third quarters in 2014, 2015 and 2016 to compare. According to the department, the numbers are counts of establishments, or individual locations, which is the same measure on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. This means that instead of counting Wal-mart once, the data reports individual Wal-mart establishment. In 2014 there were 185,634 establishments; in 2015, there were 192,108 establishments; and in 2016, there were 193,695 establishments. So the number of businesses increased, if only slightly. So are businesses in Missouri not doing well? Do they have less taxable income? Both Chuck Pierce, the government relations consultant for the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants, and Tracy King, the vice president of governmental affairs at the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, said that corporate income can vary from year to year due to the cyclical nature of the economy. Profits can be reduced by a recession. However, Tom Kruckemeyer, the chief economist for the liberal think tank Missouri Budget Project, said the state economy is doing reasonably well. Broadly speaking, the economic indicators for the state of Missouri are actually pretty good, Kruckemeyer said. One economic indicator is the unemployment rate. According to the numbers release Jan. 24 fromU.S. Department of Labor Statistics, Missouris seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 4.4 percent, compared to the national rate of 4.7 percent. And over the past few years, theMissouri and national unemployment rates have dropped. The2016 Missouri Economic Reportproduced by the Missouri Department of Economic Development found that 50,000 jobs were added in Missouri between December 2014 and December 2015. This is the largest year-over-year growth in 10 years. The report also stated that Missouris personal income increased 2 percent in 2015 and has averaged an increase of 1.8 percent from 2010 through 2015. Overall, these numbers show that Missouris economy is doing fine, so corporate entities must be paying less taxes due to tax cuts as Kendrick claims. Taxing corporations In the KMIZ interview, Kendrick said there was a loophole in a bill passed in 2015 that caused corporations to pay less taxes. Kendrick, in an interview with PolitiFact, said thebill he was referring to was Senate Bill 19, which changed the way corporate income tax was allocated for multi-state corporations. The bill expandedHouse Bill 128, passed in 2013. Before SB 19 was passed, King, of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, said Missouri taxed 50 percent of any goods produced in the state and sold in another state, so these businesses were double taxed. She said that businesses were moving out of the state and taking jobs because of this tax. Thanks to SB 19, Missouri no longer taxes the production of goods sold out of state. In the fiscal notes for SB 19, theestimated cost of the law was $15.2 million per year. However, Kendrick said the new estimate of the bills effect on the states revenue is a drop of $200 million, which other legislators confirmed. Rep. T.J. Berry, R-Kansas City, said he also heard the bill reduced tax collections by $200 million.And in a Jan. 24 House debate, Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, said a corporate allocable tax bill passed two years ago cost the state $200 million. The Department of Revenue has not responded to PolitiFacts inquiries for how much SB 19 affected the revenue collections. A few tax authorities have said this bill has played a part in the decrease of corporate income tax revenues. Kruckemeyer said the combination of HB 128 and SB 19 were the primary causes of the low corporate income tax collections because they were explicit changes in tax law. However, Ray McCarty, president of Associated Industries of Missouri, said SB 19 did lower collections but cautioned that corporate income tax revenue is only a few million dollars out of multi-billion dollar revenue collection. He stressed that there may be other factors at play, including above average tax refunds and other legislation. Our Ruling Kendrick said, Corporate entities are paying less taxes this year. Part of that is from a loophole in a bill that was passed in 2015. There hasnt been a decrease in businesses, and the Missouri economy is doing well as indicated by various economic data. So corporations must be paying less taxes though experts can argue about which tax cuts and other factors are behind Missouris lower corporate income tax collections. However, we dont have the complete numbers of corporate tax collections because the fiscal year doesnt end until June 30. With that caveat, we rate this claim as Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD440 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump held meetings in New York on Thursday as he prepared to take over the White House from President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. The following is a list of confirmed meetings from Thursday,according to Trump’s transition team: * Chairman and CEO of AT&T Inc (T.N), which is planning to merge with Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) * Former U.S. ambassador to Uruguay * Under consideration for U.S. Agency for International Development post * Former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania * Under consideration for U.S. Agency for International Development post * Chief executive officer of 21.co and a partner in Andreessen Horowitz * Under consideration for U.S. Food and Drug Administration post * Managing director at Mithril Capital Management * Under consideration for U.S. Food and Drug Administration post * President of Portugal | 1 | [
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FMD441 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Carol Adl in Middle East , News , US // 0 Comments
Hillary Clinton proposed rigging the Palestinian parliamentary elections while she was a US senator in 2006, according to a newly emerged recording.
The decade-old audio exposes then-Senator Hillary Clinton saying the US should have manipulated Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 to prevent a Hamas victory.
The US Democratic presidential nominee lamented that the US didn’t “determine who was going to win.”
The result of that election was a victory for the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas over the US-favored Fatah political party.
RT reports:
“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” then-New York Senator Clinton told the Jewish Press, a New York-based weekly newspaper, several months after the January election.
“And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win,” she said.
Until Friday, the comment Clinton made on September 5, 2006, only existed on a private audio cassette belonging to journalist Eli Chomsky. An editor and a staff writer for the Jewish Press, he interviewed Clinton at the newspaper’s office in Brooklyn.
Chomsky, who shared and played the tape for the Observer, says it is the only existing copy of that meeting with Clinton, during which the Palestinian parliamentary election was among top topics. The comments have been posted on SoundCloud.
Speaking to the news portal, he recalled being confused by the fact that “anyone could support the idea — offered by a national political leader, no less — that the US should be in the business of fixing foreign elections.”
The interview took place nine months after the Hamas movement claimed 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats, pushing aside the US-favored Fatah movement and securing the right to form a new cabinet. That victory was neither welcomed in Israel, nor in the US. In Washington, where Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, officials repeatedly stated that they would not work with a Palestinian Authority that included Hamas.
Then-President George W. Bush spoke of the elections as symbolizing the “power of democracy,” but refused to deal with Hamas as long as it opposed Israel’s existence and espoused violence.
That day in September 2006, Clinton made “odd and controversial comments,” all now saved on the 45-minute record that Chomsky “held onto all these years.”
“I went to my bosses at the time,” Chomsky told the Observer. “The Jewish Press had this mindset that they would not want to say anything offensive about anybody — even a direct quote from anyone — in a position of influence because they might need them down the road. My bosses didn’t think it was newsworthy at the time. I was convinced that it was and I held onto it all these years.”
The latest revelation comes after repeated accusations by the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump who says that the media and the political establishment have rigged the 2016 election against him.
It would seem that the crooked Mrs Clinton thinks nothing of rigging any election to suit her agenda. | 0 | [
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FMD442 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is the Kennedy Center Changing to the Obama Center? Claim summaries: Is The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts changing its name to the Obama Center?
contextual information: Claim: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is changing its name to the Obama Center. Example: [Collected via e-mail, August 2014] Rumor: The Kennedy Center For The Arts' name is being changed to the Obama Center For The Arts. Origins: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performance hall and education complex located on the banks of the Potomac River in Washington D.C. Although the Kennedy Center is the official home of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera, it is most widely known for hosting the annual Kennedy Center Honors, a program which recognizes living individuals for lifetime artistic achievement and which is broadcast live on network television each year. John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Kennedy Center Honors Although the legislation to establish a National Cultural Center was signed by President Eisenhower in 1958, it was President and Mrs. Kennedy who used their influence as well known patrons of the arts to raise the private funds necessary to establish and maintain the center. After President Kennedy's death in 1963, Congress "designated the National Cultural Center ... as a 'living memorial' to Kennedy." living memorial But there is another Kennedy Center, this one a community recreation center and senior citizens hall in Willingboro, New Jersey. In early August 2014 the Willingboro Township Council voted to rename that Kennedy Center in honor of President Barack Obama: A recreation and senior citizens center in Willingboro known as the "Kennedy Center" will soon be named after the sitting president and not a former one. The change became official Tuesday when the township council voted to change the name of the building to honor President Barack Obama. The name of the street the building is on Kennedy Way will not be changed. A shopping center across the street is also named for Kennedy. That name change was planned as part of a multi-million dollar renovation of the Willingboro community facility, which converted the former high school cafeteria into a banquet hall. But after alumnae/i of the former Kennedy High School protested, the Willingboro council reversed the decision at its September 2014 meeting: Dawn Donnelly, of Burlington Township, a 1977 graduate of Kennedy, came to the meeting with 1,200 signatures of those opposing the name change. Im an Obama supporter, Donnelly said. I voted for him two times, and I would vote for him again. Its not about that.... Kennedy meant a lot to this town in the 1960s. They are changing history. Last updated: 3 September 2014 Goldman, Jeff. "Building In N.J. Town Named After John F. Kennedy Will Now Be Named After Obama." The Star-Ledger. 7 August 2014. Levinsky, David and Rose Krebs. "Willingboro Council Reverses Kennedy Center Name Change." Burlington County Times. 2 September 2014. | 0 | [
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FMD443 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — knew it had a problem. Democrats had unexpectedly sat down in the middle of the House of Representatives chamber to demand a vote on gun control legislation, and with the body officially in recess, the cable network known for “gavel to gavel†coverage of Congress, had no means to cover it. Then it found an unlikely source: the social media feeds of House members who had turned to Periscope, a live app, and Facebook Live. “As soon as we knew it was available, we went for it,†Terry Murphy, ’s vice president for programming, said on Thursday after a short night’s sleep. “We didn’t know when we got into it that we would be doing it for 24 hours. There just wasn’t much time to debate it. †So began what was arguably the most memorable period the network has seen in years, one that Mr. Murphy estimated had probably set a record for continuous broadcast of a social media feed and that others suggested amounted to something of a declaration of independence from congressional landlords, who control the TV cameras inside the Senate and House chambers. But it was perhaps even more momentous for Periscope, which debuted just over a year ago after being acquired by Twitter. As of 5 p. m. Wednesday, Twitter messages that one or both of the live video streams broadcast by Representatives Scott Peters and Eric Swalwell of California embedded had already been viewed more than a million times, according to the company. “We always told ourselves that if we were successful, we were building a tool to give a voice to the voiceless,†Kayvon Beykpour, and chief executive of Periscope, said in an interview. “It’s showing you the truth from different people’s perspectives. It’s a really raw way of experiencing what you watch. “In this case, it’s really ironic that the voiceless were our elected representatives. †Twitter has long had a presence in Washington, and holds regular training sessions for politicians and media organizations on how best to use its tools. After Twitter bought Periscope, the video app was incorporated into the company’s training efforts. About a month ago, Twitter held a training session with the House Democratic caucus that focused specifically on how to use Periscope. A staff member from Mr. Peters’s office attended. On Wednesday, when lost access to cameras — which are normally shut off when the House is not in session — an aide suggested that Mr. Peters turn to Periscope as a means of broadcasting what was happening on the House floor. A Facebook spokeswoman said that broadcasts by members of the House had reached more than 2. 9 million viewers on the social media site. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder, wrote in a post on Thursday morning that use of Facebook Live was “bringing more openness to the political process. †Overnight ratings were not available for . Other networks shared brief segments from the live feeds, but it was that stuck with them, overriding other coverage and cutting away only when Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other House Republicans returned to the floor around 10 p. m. for a series of votes. is no stranger to sessions — be they for a filibuster or a contentious vote — but the impromptu which Mr. Murphy said the network had no advance knowledge of, was different. A staff of around 25 people remained overnight in the Capitol and at the network’s offices a few blocks away, and the regular morning team was called in four hours early. “It was the least scripted of the sessions we’ve had to cover,†Mr. Murphy said. The fact that does not control the cameras inside congressional chambers has been a source of disquiet for the network since it arrived on the air in 1979. Every time a new leader comes to power in either chamber, Mr. Murphy said, network executives send a letter requesting greater access, including the placement of independent media cameras inside the chamber. Thus far, they have been denied. The network employs about 270 people and has an annual budget of $70 million, according to a spokesman, Howard Mortman. It enjoys a niche following: Journalists covering the federal government treat it as a lifeline, and for those addicted to politics from coast to coast, few sources can rival its unvarnished transmission. While ’s decision to stick with the protest drew a flurry of criticism on Twitter, Mr. Mortman said there had been no serious concerns raised from Mr. Ryan’s office or outside groups. “We want to show as much of Congress as we can — that’s our mission,†he said. “This clearly is a big story, and this gives us a way to show what’s happening in an area where our own cameras are not allowed. †| 1 | [
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FMD444 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Young women today in metropolitan areaswho are childless and single are out-earning childless, single young males.
contextual information: Why is it that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns? You have likely heard this statistic, which was prominently featured on cable news networks Tuesday to mark Equal Pay Day. For many Democrats, it symbolizes an unfairness in the pay structures of jobs across America. However, conservatives argue that the situation is more complex and is as much about life choices as it is about fundamental inequality. We watched the debate unfold between conservative pundit Sabrina Schaeffer and liberal pundit Elizabeth Plank on MSNBC's The Reid Report, and again later between former White House adviser Anita Dunn and conservative pundit Genevieve Wood on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper. "If you compare women to men in the same job with similar backgrounds and experiences, the wage gap all but disappears," Wood said. "Women have made great strides. Instead of celebrating that, this is a political year; the White House wants to portray this as a war on women. Not only are the numbers wrong—young women today in metropolitan areas, for example, are actually outperforming males in that same category all over the country." Dunn pushed back, stating, "I'm going to jump in a little on that because I think that it's true that women are making enormous progress, but you know, as well as I do, that as they get older in the workforce, those disparities start to grow. There are all kinds of reasons that this happens, and an important discussion across the board is how we continue to ensure that progress continues." PolitiFact has provided the details about the 77 cents statistic—you can read the two most important works in this area here and here. Essentially, there is a wage gap, but it tends to disappear when comparing women and men in the exact same jobs with the same levels of experience and education. We at PunditFact want to examine the argument presented by conservatives. In this case, we are checking Wood—a conservative pundit with the Heritage Foundation—who said, "Young women today in metropolitan areas, for example, who are childless, single young women are actually outperforming males in that same category all over the country." The basis of Wood's claim directed us to a 2012 U.S. News and World Report article that was reposted on the website of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The article includes the following line: "Census data from 2008 show that single, childless women in their 20s now earn 8 percent more on average than their male counterparts in metropolitan areas." This aligns with what Wood said on CNN. Further analysis comes from James Chung of Reach Advisors, a private research firm based in New York. Chung spent about a year analyzing 2008 data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, focusing on the earnings of men and women in metropolitan areas. The actual study was never released, only some of the findings. Among what was released in September 2010 was this: "The median full-time salaries of young women in America's metropolitan areas are 8 percent higher than those of the men in their peer group." A breakdown provided for Time magazine included a look at specific cities. In Atlanta, young unmarried childless women made 21 percent more than men, while in Los Angeles, young women made 12 percent more than their counterparts. This news was also reported by NPR and CBS News. The American Enterprise Institute converted specific numbers into a graphic to illustrate how women are out-earning men in some cases. Chung mentioned that he has not updated his analysis to reflect how the figures have changed since 2008 and no longer circulates the analysis as current since it is now four years out of date. No one else, to our knowledge, has attempted to recreate Chung's specific analysis, and we found no criticism of his methodology. We did come across an analysis by Pew Research, which examined earnings trends for all women between 25 and 34 (a broader and older group). Compared to all men of the same age, Pew Research found that women earn 93 percent of what men earn. This represents a smaller gap than when considering all women and all men, according to Pew. We sent Wood's statement to Chung and asked for his perspective. While Wood is careful to note that she was discussing childless, single young women in metropolitan areas, Chung pointed out that Wood failed to mention that the analysis concerned median incomes between men and women. Why is that important? Median income figures look at earnings in the aggregate rather than comparing like jobs or professions. This leaves the claim open to the same criticism that Republicans levy against Democrats when they assert that women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man does. In the case of Chung's findings, the reason young women in metropolitan areas earn more than young men is that they are 50 percent more likely to graduate from college. As a result, they occupy more of the entry-level knowledge-based economy jobs than young men, Chung explained. He stated that it would be entirely incorrect to imply that these women outearn men with similar jobs or similar educations. The bottom line is that in a world where most players are seeking a sound bite to support a specific position, this is actually a rather complex issue. "Things aren't exactly as equal as some people say, but it's not always as dire as others claim," Chung said. Our ruling: Wood stated, "Young women today in metropolitan areas, for example, who are childless, single young women are actually outperforming males in that same category all over the country." The statement traces back to a credible analysis of 2008 Census Bureau data that examines median incomes in metropolitan areas—a fact that Wood overlooks. However, she gets most of the other details correct, and while the information is now six years old, we were unable to find more recent research to confirm or disprove the point. Finally, we should note that this comparison holds true because childless, single young women tend to have more education and qualify for higher-paying jobs. Wood's statement is accurate but requires clarification. We rate it Mostly True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD445 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Lifting weights could ward off dementia and make you smarter
by: Vicki Batts Tags: weight lifting , dementia , brain health (NaturalNews) There are many reasons to partake in strength training; weight-baring exercises are known for their health benefits. But, could lifting weights also boost your brain? Recent research indicates that may just be the case.To begin the study, researchers asked a group of people aged 55 to 86 to engage in a mix of weight lifting and brain training exercises. All of the people who partook in the study had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, which is a precursor to Alzheimer's disease , and is an early sign of dementia.While this particular study did not examine whether the benefits of exercise could be extended to the general population, the results were quite impressive. Published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society , the study found that weight-baring exercises could indeed provide some brain benefits. The researchers found a casual relationship between an increase in muscle strength and an increase in brain function. On that basis, the team recommended that more people begin a strength training regime so that the world's aging population can hopefully be a little healthier. It is currently projected that about 135 million people will have dementia by the year 2050.The same team behind this most recent research also published a paper in 2014 that revealed that weight training provided cognitive benefits to just about every area of the brain – something cognitive training failed to do.While discussing their most recent data, one of the study's researchers, Dr. Yorgi Mavros of Sydney University, commented, "What we found in this follow-up study is that the improvement in cognition function was related to their muscle strength gains. The stronger people became, the greater the benefit for their brain."For the strength training, study participants were asked to lift weights that were equivalent to about 80 percent of their maximum capacity, twice a week for six months – similar to the way in which many athletes train. And, as the participants got stronger, the amount of weight they lifted went up as well, in order to maintain the desired 80 percent of their maximum effort.Brain scans revealed that certain regions of the brain actually increased in size for those who took part in the exercise regime. Dr. Mavros says that the benefits were profound enough to warrant recommending weight training for everyone."The more we can get people doing resistance training like weight lifting , the more likely we are to have a healthier ageing population," he told the Independent . Dr. Mavros also added that the best way to ensure that you get the most benefit from exercise is by maintaining a regular routine. Exercising frequently, and with some intensity, is key to getting the most out of what you're doing.This new research is not the first to suggest that exercise can provide benefits to brain health . The body of research linking physical exercise to better cognitive function has only continued to grow over the last several years. Science has indicated that in addition to better mental health, exercise can also promote both better memory and concentration.Dr. James Pickett, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, also had a few things to say about this new study. He noted, "New research is beginning to unravel how physical exercise may have benefits for the brain as people get older. This study suggests that people with minor memory and thinking problems, known as mild cognitive impairment, may benefit from weight training to improve their brain health."Pickett also noted that while it is not yet clear if exercise can reverse dementia, they do know that it is one of the most important factors in its prevention. Along with being active, he says that not smoking and eating a healthy, balanced diet are all essential to reducing the risk. Sources: | 0 | [
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FMD446 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Could Simon Cowell be departing from 'America's Got Talent'? Claim summaries: An online article that featured the People magazine logo said Cowell "shocked everyone when he announced his departure from the show."
contextual information: In June 2023, paid ads were displayed on Facebook and Instagram, claiming that Simon Cowell would be leaving "America's Got Talent," NBC's performance-competition TV show better known as "AGT." However, this was false, and the purpose of these ads was to lure users into a scam that could cost them thousands of dollars a year. The scam claimed that Cowell had endorsed an "amazing miracle gummy product" for weight loss called G6 Keto ACV Gummies, with "ACV" standing for apple cider vinegar. To be clear, none of this was true. Cowell never endorsed any CBD or keto weight loss gummy products, and his image and likeness were used without permission. Furthermore, we do not recommend placing trust in weight loss promises that feature the words "amazing miracle." In this story, we will walk through how this scam worked, including shedding light on the strange return addresses that appeared on packages received by customers who ordered similar gummies in the past. The Facebook and Instagram ads featuring Cowell displayed before-and-after pictures that seemed to show a weight loss transformation. "Simon Cowell Shares How He Dropped 56 In Just Weeks," the ads read. The link in the ads directed users to a specific page on the website brownnature.art. Before clicking on the link, we decided to check out the homepage for brownnature.art. According to our findings, this website appeared to have been created solely for running scams. How did we know this? A fake bookstore served as the facade for the scam operation on the website. This bookstore did not have any payment options enabled, meaning users could not order any of the books the website claimed to offer. Returning to the ads featuring Cowell, we clicked the link that took us to a specific page on brownnature.art. An article loaded in our browser that featured a People magazine logo. "Simon Cowell Confirms He is 'LEAVING' America's Got Talent After His Accidental 'Live' Confession On-Air," the false headline read. The article also falsely claimed that celebrities Kelly Clarkson and Melissa McCarthy had lost weight with G6 Keto ACV Gummies. Both Clarkson and McCarthy have been featured in these scams for years, despite having no connection to any keto weight loss gummies. This was not a story that People magazine had ever published. Scammers had replicated the design of how articles are displayed on people.com, the official website for the magazine, in an attempt to fool users into believing they were reading an authentic story from the publication. After clicking on one of the many links in the fake People magazine article on brownnature.art, we were led to the G6 Keto ACV Gummies website, secure.get6gproducts.com/v1/. The creator or creators of the product's website published several false statements that extended the scam seen in the social media ads and the fake People magazine article. For example, Dr. Mehmet Oz never called the product the "holy grail" of weight loss, nor did the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism medical journal publish any pieces about the gummies, as the G6 website claimed. The G6 website also included mentions of CBS News, NBC, CNN, Women's Health, Woman's World, and Honolulu Magazine, even though these publications never featured, mentioned, or endorsed anything about the product. Perhaps worst of all was the fact that no phone number was available on the G6 website, not even in its privacy policy or terms and conditions documentation. In fact, part of the terms and conditions left two spaces after "TOLL FREE" where the phone number belonged: "Please contact Customer service at TOLL FREE between the hours of 9am EST - 9pm EST Mon - Sat with any questions regarding your product, payment or return." We have seen phone numbers omitted like this on CBD and keto weight loss gummies websites for more than a year. This was not a one-time issue. For many months, we have been observing comments from purported customers who complained about being victims of CBD and keto weight loss gummies scams. Many of these comments were posted on YouTube and contained detailed accounts of how they were scammed. These customers often stated in their comments that they were charged around $200 after believing they would only be paying about $40. They also expressed surprise that making a purchase enrolled them in a subscription that would charge their credit card hundreds of dollars per month, resulting in charges totaling thousands of dollars per year. Additionally, customers reported that when the gummy packages arrived at their doorstep, they contained no real identifying information about a parent company or anything about the people behind the products. According to the customers, the packages only included the two words "fulfillment center" along with a P.O. Box physical mailing address for Tampa, Florida, or Las Vegas, Nevada. Customers often reported a return address with the city of Smyrna, Tennessee. If any readers ordered CBD or keto gummies that promised an "amazing miracle" involving weight loss, we recommend they contact their credit card company to inform them of the scam. Again, these scams sign customers up for subscriptions. Unless action is taken, a new charge for hundreds of dollars will be placed on customers' credit cards every month. As for how Cowell truly lost weight, he once credited dropping pounds to his vegan diet. We found no credible reporting that indicated he ever consumed gummies. To be completely clear, we have never found even one real example of a celebrity who endorsed CBD or keto weight loss gummies. | 0 | [
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FMD447 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Since there have been teenagers, there have been adults trying to control them. The Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the Stubborn Child Law in 1646, allowing parents to have their defiant teenage sons put to death. The Bible suggests stoning them to death. But what if adolescent defiance is not a demon to be exorcised, but a power to be harnessed? The brains of adolescents are notoriously more receptive to rewards and peer approval, which can lead to risky behavior. But researchers and educators are noticing that young people are also more sensitive to notions of social justice and autonomy. Teenage rebellion can be virtuous — even wholesome — depending on the situation. A new study out today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that teenagers make wiser choices if they are encouraged to reimagine healthy behavior as an act of defiance. The researchers went to a middle school in New Braunfels, Tex. and randomly assigned 489 eighth graders to different groups. One group read the kind of article you’d find in any health class. It explained how the body processes food recommended a diet low in sugar and fat and featured colorful pictures of fresh foods. Another group read an exposé of cynical practices by some food companies, such as reformulating food to make it more addictive and labeling unhealthy products to make them appear healthy. “We cast the executives behind food marketing as controlling adult authority figures, and framed the avoidance of junk food as a way to rebel against their control,†explained the researchers, led by Christopher Bryan at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and David Yeager at the University of Texas at Austin. The real test came the next day, when the students were asked to choose which snacks they wanted in anticipation of a celebration. This selection took place in a different class, so it’s likely no one knew that it had anything to do with the reading from the day before. An interesting pattern emerged. Teenagers who had read the exposé article chose fewer junk food items than those in the control groups. They were 11 percentage points more likely to forgo at least one unhealthy snack, like Oreos, Cheetos or Doritos, in favor of fruit, baby carrots or trail mix, and seven percentage points more likely to choose water over Sprite or . That might seem like a small difference, but if sustained it would translate to the loss of about a pound of body fat every six to eight weeks, the researchers said — a public health triumph. What I like about this study is that it doesn’t just reframe healthy eating for adolescents it recasts adolescent defiance for adults. It depicts teenage rebellion as a potential asset to be cultivated, rather than as a threat to be quashed. Of course, we don’t know if this behavior change will last longer than a day. To learn more, the researchers will be conducting another experiment next year, following teenagers’ cafeteria choices for months after they’ve read the exposé article. “What’s really exciting about this study and other work like it is that if you can appeal to kids’ sense of wanting to not be duped, you empower them to take a stand,†said Dr. Ronald E. Dahl, director of the Center on the Developing Adolescent at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Dahl’s own research suggests that adolescent brains are not inferior to adult brains, as is sometimes assumed to the contrary, they may have special advantages in navigating social hierarchies and adapting to rapid change. “If they are motivated, you can change their behavior profoundly. †In 2000, an antismoking ad, created in consultation with teenagers, featured a group of young people that piled up 1, 200 body bags outside the headquarters of a tobacco company — representing the number of deaths attributed to smoking each day in America. In the ad, an youth calls out the company’s sins over a megaphone, as an older white man peers down nervously from his office above. The spot and others in the campaign turned the Marlboro Man narrative upside down, reframing smoking as an act of corporate submission, rather than rebellion. In 2009, a study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimated that the broader campaign, known as “truth,†prevented some 450, 000 young people from starting to smoke from 2000 to 2004. People who have spent their careers working with teenagers have learned this lesson through trial and error. “There are two adolescent imperatives: to resist authority and to contribute to community,†said Rob Riordan, of High Tech High, a network of California charter schools. He has found that as students work together toward a shared purpose, the impulse to resist authority fades. Adults work harder when they have a higher purpose, too. Health care professionals, for example, wash their hands more carefully when signs remind them of the benefits to their patients’ health rather than to their own, according to the organizational psychologist Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. But teenagers seem to be particularly sensitive to even a whiff of mission. In another study, also by Mr. Yeager, students who had been asked to reflect on the larger purpose of their learning were more likely to grind through math problems and resist the urge to watch viral videos or play Tetris. Their increased, in other words, when they connected math to a larger cause. Teenagers who stop eating meat as an act of defiance display the same kind of tenacity, a phenomenon Mr. Yeager calls “spite vegetarianism. †“Adolescents have this craziness that we can criticize — or we can tap into,†said Ron Berger, who taught public school for 28 years and is now the chief academic officer at EL Education, a nonprofit network of 150 schools nationwide. “This is a time in their lives when justice matters, more than any other time. †Schools affiliated with EL Education embed social purpose into the curriculum to try to make good use of this trait. At Polaris Charter Academy on Chicago’s West Side, seventh graders learning about the Second Amendment decided to start a campaign against gun violence in their neighborhood. They created four announcements, which aired on television published a book about peacemakers in their community and presented their work to the mayor. Ameerah Rollins, now 16 and a junior at Richard T. Crane Medical Prep High School, was one of the seventh graders. At first, she said, “none of us really thought we would make much impact. †But as the students began to interview local officials and organize community events, “I noticed that people were starting to look at us, to acknowledge what we were doing. †Nine out of 10 of her classmates knew someone who had been shot or killed. Taking action felt like a way to begin to avenge those deaths. “It triggered something very personal. And when it became personal, we actually started to put in the work. †From her experience, Ms. Rollins concluded that teenagers may have a distinct capacity to change society. “With adults, they’re more realists,†she said. “They see how things happen, and they feel that maybe this isn’t really worth it. But in seventh grade, we don’t pay attention to the negativity. We never give up. A lot of people may see that as being naïve, but in reality, that’s power. †Her class’s experience raises other tantalizing possibilities: What else might teenagers be driven to do in the name of benevolent defiance? Could adolescents who learn about the profit motives of the beauty industry begin to see Photoshopped images as propaganda? Could they start to resent how designers borrow manufacturers’ tricks to make their products more addictive? More important, could any of these mental shifts endure longer than a few hours? Mr. Bryan and Mr. Yeager, the authors of the new food study, know they are working against a powerful consumer culture. Most obesity prevention efforts do not lead to any weight loss in young people, according to a of 64 programs. But they will soon test whether they can change the way their study subjects see ads long term — so that each new soda commercial acts like a booster shot of indignation, rather than temptation. “Then the food industry is paying to undermine their own products,†Mr. Bryan said, sounding downright adolescent. | 1 | [
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FMD448 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: 9 Shares
8 0 0 1
Last July, the Palestinian Authority took the unexpected, although belated step of seeking Arab backing in suing Britain over the Balfour Declaration. That ‘declaration’ was the first ever explicit commitment made by Britain, and the West in general, to establish a Jewish homeland atop an existing Palestinian homeland.
It is too early to tell whether the Arab League would heed the Palestinian call , or if the PA would even follow through, especially considering that the latter has the habit of making too many proclamations backed by little or no action.
However, it seems that the next year will witness a significant tug of war regarding the Balfour Declaration, the 100th anniversary of which will be commemorated on November 02, 2017 .
But who is Balfour, what is the Balfour Declaration and why does all of this matters today?
Britain's Foreign Secretary from late 1916, Arthur James Balfour, had pledged Palestine to another people. That promise was made on November 02, 1917 on behalf of the British government in the form of a letter sent to the leader of the Jewish community in Britain, Walter Rothschild.
MORE... Palestine’s reality: Al Nakba commemoration and the right of return or the return of the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement? To be a child in Palestine, where Israel has killed more children than the total number of goals scored in all FIFA World Cups Let There Be Water: Israel's policy of stolen water No hope and no heroes for Palestine At the time, Britain was not even in control of Palestine, which was still part of the Ottoman Empire. Either way, Palestine was never Balfour’s to so casually transfer to anyone else. His letter read:
“His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
He concluded, “I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.”
Balfour was hardly acting on his own. True, the Declaration bears his name, yet, in reality, he was a loyal agent of an Empire with massive geopolitical designs, not only concerning Palestine alone, but with Palestine as part of a larger Arab landscape.
Only a year earlier, another sinister document was introduced, albeit secretly. It was endorsed by another top British diplomat, Mark Sykes and, on behalf of France, by François Georges-Picot. The Russians were informed of the agreement, as they too had received a piece of the Ottoman cake.
The document indicated that, once the Ottomans were soundly defeated, their territories, including Palestine, would be split among the prospective victorious parties.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement , also known as the ‘Asia Minor Agreement’, was signed in secret one hundred years ago, two years into World War I. It signified the brutal nature of colonial powers that rarely associated land and resources with people who lived upon or owned them.
The centerpiece of the agreement was a map that was marked with straight lines by a China graph pencil. The map largely determined the fate of the Arabs, dividing them in accordance with various haphazard assumptions of tribal and sectarian lines.
The improvised map consisted not only of lines but also colors , along with language that attested to the fact that the two countries viewed the Arab region purely on materialistic terms, without paying the slightest attention to the possible repercussions of slicing up entire civilizations with a multifarious history of co-operation and conflict.
The Sykes-Picot negotiations were completed in March 1916 and, although official, was secretly signed on May 19, 1916.
WWI concluded on November 11, 1918, after which the division of the Ottoman Empire began in earnest.
British and French mandates were extended over divided Arab entities, while Palestine was granted to the Zionist movement a year later, when Belfour conveyed the British government’s promise, sealing the fate of Palestinians to a life of perpetual war and turmoil.
Rarely was British-Western hypocrisy and complete disregard for the national aspiration of any other nation on full display as in the case of Palestine. Beginning with the first wave of Zionist Jewish migration to Palestine in 1882, European countries helped facilitate the movement of illegal settlers and resources, where the establishment of many colonies, large and small, was afoot.
So when Balfour sent his letter to Rothschild, the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was very much plausible.
Still, many supercilious promises were being made to the Arabs during the Great War years, as the Arab leadership sided with the British in their war against the Ottoman Empire. Arabs were promised instant independence, including that of the Palestinians.
When the intentions of the British and their rapport with the Zionists became too apparent, Palestinians rebelled , marking a rebellion that has never ceased 99 years later, and highlighting the horrific consequences of British colonialism and the eventual complete Zionist takeover of Palestine which is still felt after all of these years.
Paltry attempts to pacify Palestinian anger were to no avail, especially after the League of Nations Council in July 1922 approved the terms of the British Mandate over Palestine – which was originally granted to Britain in April 1920 – without consulting the Palestinians at all. In fact, Palestinians would disappear from the British and international radar, only to reappear as negligible rioters, troublemakers, and obstacles to the joint British-Zionist colonial concoctions.
Despite occasional assurances to the contrary, the British intention of ensuring the establishment of an exclusively Jewish state in Palestine was becoming clearer with time. The Balfour Declaration was not merely an aberration, but had, indeed, set the stage for the full-scale ethnic cleansing that followed, three decades later.
In fact, that history remains in constant replay: the Zionists claimed Palestine and renamed it ‘Israel’; the British continue to support them, although never ceasing to pay lip-service to the Arabs; and the Palestinian people remain a nation that is geographically fragmented between refugee camps, in the diaspora, militarily occupied, or treated as second class citizens in a country upon which their ancestors dwelt since time immemorial.
While Balfour cannot be blamed for all the misfortunates that have befallen Palestinians since he communicated his brief, but infamous letter, the notion that his ‘promise’ embodied - that of complete disregard of the aspirations and rights of the Palestinian Arab people – that very letter is handed from one generation of British diplomats to the next, in the same way that Palestinian resistance to colonialism has and continues to spread across generations.
That injustice continues, thus the perpetuation of the conflict. What the British, the early Zionists, the Americans and subsequent Israeli governments failed to understand, and continue to ignore at their own peril, is that there can be no peace without justice and equality in Palestine; and that Palestinians will continue to resist, as long as the reasons that inspired their rebellion nearly a century ago, remain in place. | 0 | [
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FMD449 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A young white man in Chicago became an internet sensation and a probable future ex-con after on Tuesday, he made a bunch of violent and humiliating slave references to Starbucks customers who happened to be African-American. The exchange quickly escalated to violence and now, the racist man has been charged with a misdemeanor after one of his victims ended up in a hospital.21-year-old William Boucher was offended after someone spilled coffee on his light suit. The exchange spilled out into the West Loop street where a TV cameraman and several bystanders were able to capture it on their cell phones. In the beginning of the video, you can hear 23-year-old William Boucher yelling Shut up slave! Do not talk to me! Your children are disposable vermin! Boucher yells at one man, who is also videotaping him, and spits on the 30-year-old man and a 34-year-old woman.The man shoves Boucher, who continues ranting at black bystanders. Get on all fours right now! he yells. Get on all fours! Do not walk off on two legs! You don t deserve to walk on two legs, vermin. Source: Raw StoryThings got violent whenHe punched on man and spit on two other people. Just as things appeared to be over, Boucher, for no apparent reason, punched a homeless man, sending him to the ground. That s when bystanders tackled Boucher.Here s the video: Calling people racist slurs. When I was coming to work, I was not expecting to see that, said Juan Torres, who works at the Starbucks where the incident happened. I was shocked because I thought it was going to end right there. Security was going to come. The cops were going to show up, Torres said.The 57-year-old punching victim was admitted to the hospital to be treated for an eye injury. Boucher has been charged with a misdemeanor.Boucher s Facebook page lists him as a drop out, an entrepreneur, a socialist and a world evangelist. Featured image via Billy Boucher Facebook page | 0 | [
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FMD450 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S. government will set up a new agency to do background checks on employees and contractors, the White House said on Friday, after a massive breach of U.S. government files exposed the personal data of millions of people last year. As a part of a sweeping overhaul, the Obama administration said it will establish a National Background Investigations Bureau. It will replace the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Federal Investigative Services (FIS), which currently conducts each year more than 2 million background investigations for scores of federal agencies. The move, a stiff rebuke for FIS and OPM, comes after last year’s disclosure that a hack of OPM computers exposed the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information of roughly 22 million current and former federal employees and contractors, as well as applicants for federal jobs and individuals listed on background check forms. Unlike FIS, the new agency’s information systems will be handled by the Defense Department, making it even more central to Washington’s effort to bolster its cyber defenses against constant intrusion attempts by hackers and foreign nationals. The White House gave no timeline for implementing the changes, but said some would begin this year. It will seek $95 million more in its upcoming fiscal 2017 budget for information technology development, according to a White House fact sheet. A transition team will develop a plan to migrate existing functions from FIS while continuing to provide investigative services, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in a blog on the OPM website. Officials have privately blamed the OPM data breach on China, though security researchers and officials have said there is no evidence Beijing has maliciously used the data trove. The hack prompted several congressional committees to investigate whether OPM was negligent in its cyber security practices. OPM Director Katherine Archuleta resigned last July as the government intensified a broad push to improve cyber defenses and modernize systems. “Clearly we’re not there yet,†Admiral Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, said at a cyber security event in Washington this week when asked about U.S. preparedness against hacks. The damage done by cyber attacks, he added, “is going to get worse before it gets better.†OPM has had a large backlog of security clearance files. This has prompted it to rely on outside contractors for assistance. One of these is Keypoint Government Solutions, which took over the bulk of federal background checks after a competitor, USIS, was hacked. Keypoint, which is owned by Veritas Capital, later suffered a breach of its own networks. No comment was immediately available from Keypoint or CACI International Inc (CACI.N), another contractor involved in background checks. USIS filed for bankruptcy protection last year. Brian Kaveney, who heads the security clearance practice at the Armstrong Teasdale law firm, said the new agency was expected to take over the 8,800 investigators who now work for FIS, including 2,300 government workers and 6,500 contractors. The Defense Department and OPM did not respond when asked if the government will still rely on support from contractors. Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of a House of Representatives panel that has been looking into the issue, said Friday’s announcement fell short. “Protecting this information should be a core competency of OPM,†Chaffetz said in a statement. “Today’s announcement seems aimed only at solving a perception problem rather than tackling the reforms needed to fix a broken security clearance process.†| 1 | [
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FMD451 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Italy s ruling Democratic Party (PD), hit by internal divisions and a banking scandal, is continuing to slide in opinion polls, with a new survey on Saturday putting it more than six points behind the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement. The survey by the Ixe agency, commissioned by Huffington Post Italia, comes just days before parliament is expected to be dissolved to make way for elections in March. It gives the center-left PD just 22.8 percent of voter support, down almost five points in the last two months, compared with 29.0 percent for 5-Star, which has gained almost two points in the same period. Silvio Berlusconi s center-right Forza Italia (Go Italy!) is given 16.2 percent, with its right-wing allies the Northern League and Brothers of Italy on 12.1 percent and 5.0 percent respectively. This bloc is expected to win most seats at the election but not enough for an absolute majority, resulting in a hung parliament. With the PD s support eroding in virtually all opinion polls, several political commentators have speculated that its leader Matteo Renzi may choose or be forced to announce he will not be the party s candidate for prime minister at the election. Renzi has given no indication so far he will take this step. The PD has split under his leadership, with critics complaining he has dragged the traditionally center-left party to the right. Breakaway groups united this month to form a new left-wing party called Free and Equal (LeU), which now has 7.3 percent of support, according to Ixe. The PD s popularity seems to have also been hurt by a parliamentary commission looking into the collapse of 10 Italian banks in the past two years. The commission s findings have put the PD on the defensive, allowing the opposition to claim a conflict of interest involving one of Renzi s closest allies who was active in trying to save a bank where her father was a board member. | 1 | [
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FMD452 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: No one has passed for more yardage or more touchdowns in a Dallas Cowboys uniform than Tony Romo. Not Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach, Danny White or Don Meredith. But Romo has apparently completed his last pass for the team. After losing his starting job last season, he is retiring as a player to become the lead football analyst for CBS Sports, replacing Phil Simms. CBS announced the hiring on Tuesday and said that Romo would join the man Jim Nantz and the sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson on the lead announcing team. “We know Tony will quickly develop into a terrific analyst,†the news release said. On Tuesday afternoon, Romo posted on Twitter a photograph of himself in a CBS blazer with the message, “I guess it’s time to start dressing up. †CBS’s announcement acknowledged Simms, who has been its lead N. F. L. analyst for 20 years. “We are discussing with Phil his future role with CBS Sports,†it said. Romo played for the Cowboys for 13 seasons and compiled a record as a starter, but, unlike Aikman and Staubach, he never won a Super Bowl. In fact, he was never on a team that produced a decent playoff run, going in his career. As a result, he will probably always sit just below the top quarterbacks in the Cowboys pantheon. But playoff failures are not the reason the Cowboys cut him. They had plenty of other reasons. Chief among them was the emergence of Dak Prescott, the rookie who stepped in last season when Romo was injured and put up huge numbers for the Cowboys. Romo will be 37 at the start of next season, and he has struggled to stay on the field of late, managing only four games in 2015 and only four passes in 2016. After missing the first 10 weeks of last season with a back injury, he returned, but Prescott had been so impressive that Romo did not get his job back. Nonetheless, there were some suitors who had hoped to get something out of Romo’s twilight years. Romo was a Pro Bowl selection and could have provided veteran leadership to a young team or been the final piece of the puzzle for a team close to the top prize. Most of the speculation recently centered on the Broncos and the Texans. Denver, which struggled with Trevor Siemian last season, and Houston, whose signing of Brock Osweiler was a bust, will now have to look elsewhere. Still, Romo has been good enough recently enough that some wondered if he would return, if the offer was right. Starting quarterbacks get injured, and teams have been known to have midseason quarterback crises. Veteran players are also known to have second thoughts about retirement — ask Brett Favre. Romo has certainly been the most player in this linked with a dozen or more teams at one time or another. The Browns, the Redskins, the Chiefs, the Jets and the 49ers were all linked with him. It seemed likely that there would be a job for him somewhere. Instead, he retires ranked 21st in career passing touchdowns, with 248, sandwiched between the standouts Drew Bledsoe and Boomer Esiason. But like them, he will be remembered for never winning a Super Bowl as a starter. Romo played college football at Eastern Illinois. In a year in which quarterbacks Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller and Rex Grossman were all taken in the first round of the draft, Romo was bypassed by every team through all seven rounds in 2003. The Cowboys signed him to a contract, and he sat on the bench for three years behind Quincy Carter, Vinny Testaverde and Drew Bledsoe before finally taking over as starter in 2006. His elevation led to a reversal of fortune for the Cowboys. They had made the playoffs just once in the previous six seasons. Under Romo, they made it in three of four years, including in and seasons. But they won just one playoff game. After a fallow period, Romo had a last hurrah in 2014, making the Pro Bowl and leading the Cowboys to a record. But the team tripped up in the playoffs again, losing to the Packers in the divisional round. | 1 | [
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FMD453 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Today California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas.
contextual information: Ever-proud Texas has lately been surpassed in job gains and economic strength by California, a Texas Democrat points out. Julián Castro, the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, mentioned California during the Texas Democratic Party's state convention after noting that as governor, Republican Rick Perry taunted the West Coast state for its economy not matching his home state's pace. Today, the former San Antonio mayor told reporters on June 17, 2016, "California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas. Maybe what we need to do is trade in Gov. Jerry Brown of California for Gov. Greg Abbott and get better results." Castro made a similar declaration in his evening keynote speech, telling delegates, "This is what happens when a party doesn't believe in government in the first place but has absolute power over its people for decades. You know, they used to brag that Texas was doing so much better than big bad liberal California. But Texas Republicans managed to bungle that too. Because today California is kicking our butt in job development and economic growth."
Wondering how Castro reached his conclusion, we heard back from Manny Garcia, a state party official, who said by email that Castro drew on news stories and government data to find Texas trailing. Garcia also provided what he described as Castro's personally prepared backup document. Over the 12 months starting in June 2015, Castro's footnoted document notes that Texas added an estimated 171,800 seasonally adjusted jobs, per the Texas Workforce Commission. California, from April 2015 through April 2016, reportedly added 450,200 jobs, the document states. Castro's document also declares that California has recently seen greater percentage increases in Gross Domestic Product. Between the first quarter of 2014 and the last quarter of 2015, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced on June 14, 2016, that California saw a 4.1 percent increase in GDP, based on national prices for the goods and services produced within each state. Texas's GDP had gone up 3.8 percent, according to the bureau. Also noted by Castro, California's real GDP grew 2.7 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2015; Texas's GDP only grew 1.4 percent. Castro's document further notes that from 2014 to 2015, per capita personal income in California grew by 5.3 percent, according to a March 2016 Bureau of Economic Analysis document. In the same year, per capita personal income in Texas grew 2.4 percent, according to the bureau's fact sheet about Texas.
For our part, we noticed that Castro compared raw changes in jobs over slightly different time periods. Economists we queried agreed that the population difference between the states makes raw counts less useful than rate-of-change comparisons. At the time Castro spoke, the latest available U.S. Census Bureau population estimates indicated that as of July 2015, the Golden State was home to 38.8 million people, while Texas had 27 million residents—30 percent fewer. To compare job gains for each state over a similar period, we turned to Cheryl Abbot, a regional economist in the Dallas office of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By email, Abbot advised that from May 2015 through April 2016, 32 states had statistically significant year-over-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment. The largest job gains, she said, were in California, Florida, and Texas, with 440,300, 253,900, and 171,800 jobs gained, respectively. In percentage growth, Abbot stated that the annual rate of job growth for California was 2.8 percent, compared with Texas's 1.5 percent.
We asked Daniel Hamermesh, an economist at Royal Holloway, University of London, formerly employed by the University of Texas, to assess the job figures with Castro's claim in mind. By email, Hamermesh replied that Castro was right for the short term, though Texas continues to look better in the long view; from May 2006 to May 2016, the state saw job gains of 18.6 percent, while California experienced 8 percent growth, Hamermesh said. After we downloaded the government's monthly counts of jobs in each state, we found that as of May 2016, California had experienced greater percentage gains in employment than Texas for every 12-month period going back to 2011. It's only if you go back further that Texas's job growth exceeds that of California. This doesn't entirely mean Texas loses out. Separately, in response to our inquiry, Tara Sinclair, chief economist for Indeed, a job-posting service, pointed out by email that Texas has long enjoyed a lower unemployment rate—a facet Castro didn't mention. Sinclair drew on data posted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to show that Texas's unemployment rate has trailed California's rate since before 2010. Sinclair also prepared a graph showing that since about 1990, Texas has had a better nonfarm employment-to-population ratio than California, though both states have shown improvement since 2010. All in all, Sinclair said by email, focusing on the total number of people employed is misleading due to the different population sizes of the two states. By both the unemployment rate (a standard measure of labor market health) and the employment-to-population ratio, Texas's labor market actually looks healthier than California's.
Castro's other suggested indicators—GDP and personal income growth—check out in California's favor. We confirmed his provided GDP figures, also spotting two sets of inflation-adjusted Bureau of Economic Analysis figures of note: California's $2.2 trillion GDP in the first quarter of 2016 was up 4.7 percent from its $2.17 trillion GDP in the first quarter of 2015, while Texas's first quarter 2016 GDP of $1.48 trillion was up 0.2 percent from $1.478 trillion 12 months before (figures in chained 2009 dollars). California's 2015 per capita real GDP of $56,395 was up 3.2 percent from $54,606 in 2014; Texas's per capita GDP of $53,707 was up 1.8 percent from $52,742 in 2014. Meanwhile, the bureau's state-by-state breakout shows California with the bigger improvement in personal income between the last quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016. Personal income means net earnings from property income and other sources, including government programs. California saw 0.9 percent growth in per capita personal income between the last quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, according to another bureau chart, while Texas saw 0.8 percent growth. California also saw greater growth by this metric in each of the previous four quarters, per the chart, with Texas last having a growth edge in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Our ruling: Castro said that today, California is creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas. These fighting words hold up based on recent job growth and relative changes in GDP and personal income. Still, would it hurt to acknowledge that Texas continues to enjoy a lower unemployment rate? We rate this claim True. | 1 | [
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"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD454 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The unemployment rate among blacks in Texas is 9.5% -- far more than double white unemployment -- and wages have fallen for black workers in Texas since 2000.
contextual information: Urging the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas to choose a president who prioritizes jobs and rising wages for all communities, a Texas group stated that African Americans in the state have fared poorly on both fronts. The Texas Organizing Project, which claims to promote social and economic equality for low- to moderate-income residents, joined labor unions in calling on the Fed, which has kept interest rates near zero since 2008 to spur business lending, not to raise interest rates and instead focus on full employment and higher wages, according to a March 4, 2015, news story in the Dallas Morning News. The project caught our attention in a March 2015 press release with this: Although the economy is adding jobs, the unemployment rate among blacks in Texas is 9.5%—far more than double the white unemployment rate—and wages have fallen for black workers in Texas since 2000. We sought elaboration.
To our inquiry, a project spokesman, Daniel Barrera, pointed us by email to a March 2015 report by the Brooklyn-based Center for Popular Democracy, which claims to promote equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy. The report, Wall Street, Main Street, and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard: Why African Americans Must Not Be Left Out of the Federal Reserve's Full-Employment Mandate, presents charts with the cited figures, which the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute compiled based on federal wage and employment data. One chart indicates that the 2014 Texas black unemployment rate of 9.5 percent was more than twice the state's white unemployment rate of 3.7 percent; the 2014 Hispanic jobless rate was 5.3 percent. Conditions may have been better in Texas than elsewhere over those years. Nationally, according to the report, black-white unemployment disparities were greatest in Wisconsin (where the black jobless rate was 4.6 times the white rate) and Minnesota (where the black rate was 3.7 times the white rate).
Another chart in the report indicates that median hourly wages for Texas whites and Hispanics increased by 8 and 2.9 percent, respectively, from 2000 to 2014, while median hourly wages for black Texans decreased by 0.8 percent. We wondered if blacks experienced falling wages by this measure throughout those years. They did not: In response to our inquiry, the Economic Policy Institute provided year-by-year data showing that the hourly median for black Texans decreased in six years while increasing in eight years. Throughout the period, the real median wage for Texas African Americans bottomed out at $13.61 in 2008 and peaked at $15.18 in 2012. Nationally, at the end of the 15-year period, median real wages for African-American workers were down even more than in Texas alone, according to the report. Specifically, the national median real hourly wage for African Americans in 2014 was $13.97, about 3 percent less than the comparable median of $14.41 in 2000. Additionally, according to the report, other states had larger differences between the first and last years studied.
And why? Missing from the report is an explanation for the differences between black workers and others. When we called to ask about that, Ady Barkan, a center official, suggested multiple longstanding factors, including racism and differences in education levels and rates of incarceration between blacks and whites. By email, Barkan also pointed out a July 2011 issue paper from the liberal Center for American Progress noting, among other reasons, that in each of the latest U.S. recessions, blacks were most often the first employees fired and the last ones hired (once each recession was ending). We asked the Economic Policy Institute why black unemployment in Texas appeared to be higher than white and Hispanic unemployment. Josh Bivens, director of research and policy, said by email that this may be due to discrimination in the labor market and pre-labor market factors.
And what is the pre-labor market? Bivens explained that residential segregation can lead to blacks attending lower-quality primary and secondary schools, potentially resulting in lower levels of educational achievement and less lucrative jobs. We also sought an explanation of the cited differences from Chris King, director of the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources at the University of Texas. By email, King stated that labor economists would explain higher unemployment among blacks/African Americans nationally by pointing out that African Americans tend to have lower levels of education and are employed in lower-paying occupations and industries than whites. King elaborated by highlighting Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2011 showing that black men were more likely to work in service, production, transportation, and material moving jobs. Conversely, he noted that black men were less likely to work in professional and managerial jobs than whites; the picture was similar for black women.
Another view came from analyst Chuck DeVore of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, who suggested that the real median hourly wage estimates used by the institute may provide an incomplete picture of economic well-being. People do not live on wages alone, DeVore said, adding that a more accurate indicator of wealth would be household income, which includes Social Security, inheritances, and any other financial assistance.
Our ruling: The Texas Organizing Project stated that the unemployment rate among blacks in Texas is 9.5%—far more than double the white unemployment rate—and that wages have fallen for black workers in Texas since 2000. Texas African Americans may not have been as badly off as residents of other states, and this claim does not acknowledge wage fluctuations over the years. Regardless, evidence shows that Texas blacks have a higher unemployment rate than their fellow Texans and are the only group with lower wages in 2014 than in 2000. We rate the statement True. The statement is accurate, and there is nothing significant missing. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD455 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Does a Sony Patent Propose Viewers Skip Commercials by Yelling Brand Names at TV? Claim summaries: "System for converting television commercials into interactive networked video games" doesn't quite capture the strangeness of the invention.
contextual information: On Jan. 9, 2023, a Twitter user tweeted that "Sony owns a patent that would force viewers to exclaim the brand name during commercials [in order] to end them." The tweet, which went viral, was accompanied by a "meme-worthy" patent illustration: meme-worthy Snopes readers asked us if this was a genuine patent truly owned by Sony and if its purpose is accurately described in the viral tweet. In short, the answer to both questions is yes. More broadly, the patent tracked down by TechRadar editor Lance Ulanoff describes a "system for converting television commercials into interactive networked video games." The verbal commercial-ender is just one of several advertising solutions outlined in the patent. The patent is, indeed, owned by Sony. the patent The viral image comes from Figure 9 in this patent. The interpretation of the comic matches the technical notes for this figure: technical notes In [the] first capture of the sequence, a user is watching [a] movie. Progress pointer in progress bar shows that [the] content display corresponds to a movie and that [a] break is approaching. On second capture, progress pointer shows that the movie has progressed to break for placing the IC [Interactive Commercial]. IC is interactive and instructions from the display ask the user to 'Say "McDonalds" to end [the] commercial.' On third capture, the user is saying "McDonalds!" The client device includes a microphone that captures the user's words and voice recognition on the device [that] determines that the user has responded. The system then proceeds to skip the rest of the commercial, as shown on fourth capture, where the user goes back to watch the movie. What's the point? The patent provides one example of a motivation for both advertiser and viewer: patent In one embodiment, the user gets rewarded with some points or a coupon from the sponsor [for shouting out the brand]. The rewards can be collected by the user in a variety of ways, such as receiving a coupon in the mail or via email, getting a text message in a mobile phone with the coupon, collecting points toward collecting [prizes] in a web site, etc. This, it bears highlighting, is not the only McDonald's-based interactive commercial technology described in the Sony patent. Figure 8 describes a scenario in which a viewer could "speed up" a commercial by "throwing a pickle" into a burger: In the embodiment of FIG. 8, the instructions are "Throw the pickle to speed up commercial." The user, which is holding a one-handed controller with motion detection, swings his arm to simulate the act of throwing a pickle. As a result, the flying interactive pickle is placed in the burger, and the commercial message "Make it your way" is displayed briefly before the commercial ends and the user returns to watching the streaming media. Because this is a genuine patent owned by Sony that describes a system for skipping commercials that involves yelling brand names out loud, the claim is Lance Ulanoff. "Sony Patent Would Have You Yell at Your TV to Skip Commercials." TechRadar, 11 Jan. 2023, https://www.techradar.com/news/sony-patent-would-have-you-yell-at-your-tv-to-skip-commercials. Zalewski, Gary M. System for Converting Television Commercials into Interactive Networked Video Games. US8246454B2, 21 Aug. 2012, https://patents.google.com/patent/US8246454B2/en. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD456 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Here s the brutal truth on the socialist who wanted to be your next president and take your hard earned money:Sanders spent most of his life as an angry radical and agitator who never accomplished much of anything. And yet now he thinks he deserves the power to run your life and your finances We will raise taxes; he confirmed Monday, yes, we will. One of his first jobs was registering people for food stamps, and it was all downhill from there.Sanders took his first bride to live in a maple sugar shack with a dirt floor, and she soon left him. Penniless, he went on unemployment. Then he had a child out of wedlock. Desperate, he tried carpentry but could barely sink a nail. He was a shi**y carpenter, a friend told Politico Magazine. His carpentry was not going to support him, and didn t. Then he tried his hand freelancing for leftist rags, writing about masturbation and rape and other crudities for $50 a story. He drove around in a rusted-out, Bondo-covered VW bug with no working windshield wipers. Friends said he was always poor and his electricity was turned off a lot. They described him as a slob who kept a messy apartment and this is what his friends had to say about him.The only thing he was good at was talking non-stop about socialism and how the rich were ripping everybody off. The whole quality of life in America is based on greed, the bitter layabout said. I believe in the redistribution of wealth in this nation. So he tried politics, starting his own socialist party. Four times he ran for Vermont public office, and four times he lost badly. He never attracted more than single-digit support even in the People s Republic of Vermont. In his 1971 bid for U.S. Senate, the local press said the 30-year-old Sanders describes himself as a carpenter who has worked with disturbed children. In other words, a real winner.He finally wormed his way into the Senate in 2006, where he still ranks as one of the poorest members of Congress. Save for a municipal pension, Sanders lists no assets in his name. All the assets provided in his financial disclosure form are his second wife s. He does, however, have as much as $65,000 in credit-card debt.Sure, Sanders may not be a hypocrite, but this is nothing to brag about. His worthless background contrasts sharply with the successful careers of other outsiders in the race for the White House, including a billionaire developer, a world-renowned neurosurgeon and a Fortune 500 CEO.The choice in this election is shaping up to be a very clear one. It will likely boil down to a battle between those who create and produce wealth, and those who take it and redistribute it.Via: IBD | 0 | [
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FMD457 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: What next? Under a Sacramento, California program, public housing residents are getting FREE zip cars .We now have pretty much everything free for people living in government housing free phones, free food, free debit card loaded with money, low-cost housing and now a car to use to zip around in Oy vey!It s no wonder refugee from all over the world want to come to the US. We have the MOST GENEROUS FREEBIES!This program was funded by a grant from the state of California. It s basically a Rob Peter to Pay Paul program The program is funded through a $1.3 million grant from the California Air Resources Board using cap-and-trade funds that businesses pay to offset their carbon emissions. This should be interesting Residents can use the cars on a first come, first served basis. They will be limited to three-hour windows three times per week.Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the cars will help people get to doctors appointments, job interviews and school.Residents at three public housing areas now have a mini-fleet of free Zipcars to make their way around Sacramento.On Friday, Sacramento launched a pilot program that put eight shared electric Kia Souls at public housing sites. Up to 300 residents can apply for on-demand access to the vehicles, with no charge for maintenance, insurance or juicing up the battery.The program is funded through a $1.3 million grant from the California Air Resources Board using cap-and-trade funds that businesses pay to offset their carbon emissions.Local leaders said it will provide green transportation options to disadvantaged areas where even simple tasks like getting groceries can be a challenge. Not having a car it can be a real strain to get places safely, said Thomas Hall, spokesman for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, which is running the program in partnership with car-share company Zipcar and other governmental agencies.The cars are owned and maintained by Boston-based Zipcar, which has car-sharing operations in dozens of cities and on college campuses. Two cars are located at each of four sites: Alder Grove Housing Complex off Broadway, Edgewater apartments downtown, Mutual Housing at Lemon Hill in south Sacramento and the Sacramento Valley Station.READ MORE: SACRAMENTO BEE | 0 | [
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FMD458 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Don’t save your tax refund check — spend it on travel. That is the message some tour operators, cruise lines and hotels want to get across this year, and with Tax Day approaching on April 18, they’re offering trips and stays. Most are priced below $3, 000, the amount of the average tax refund in 2017, as of early March, according to the Internal Revenue Service. The South African Tourism office in the United States has created a travel initiative of nine trips to entice aspiring travelers to visit the country. All cost about $3, 000 or less and include accommodations and some meals and activities most include airfare. Each trip is from a different tour operator — SmarTours, for example, has a package that includes a stay in Cape Town and a safari in Kruger National Park. From $1, 799 a person. And Travel Discounters has a itinerary that includes stays in Johannesburg and the Karongwe Game Reserve, where guests go on daily game drives. From $2, 199 a person. Bangu Masisi, the president of South African Tourism in North America, said the tax season was an ideal opportunity to show that a trip to South Africa is within reach. “Most people think that a vacation to South Africa is out of their budget, but these trips prove that it’s more affordable than they may imagine,†she said. The travel company STA Travel has two “TaxPerience†trips both are available throughout 2017 and include flights, internal transfers, accommodations, tours and some meals and activities. The “Northern Hilltribes and Villages†package includes stays in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, but the heart of the trip is exploring more rural northern Thailand — there, travelers visit villages to learn about the local culture and cuisine and also go on guided treks through the countryside. From $1, 295 a person. The second trip is a “Cambodia Experience,†in which travelers visit not only Angkor Wat and Siem Reap in Cambodia but also Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and Bangkok in Thailand. From $1, 641 a person. Cruise fans can consider the two “Tax Refund†journeys from Variety Cruises, both available throughout 2017: a cruise of the Greek Islands, including stops in Santorini and Mykonos (from $2, 695 a person) or an cruise around Iceland, with stops in the cities of Siglufjordur and Reykjavik (from $2, 950 a person). Hotels, too, are using tax season as a peg to attract guests. In Zanzibar, the Baraza Resort Spa has a “Under Taxing Rejuvenating Yoga Holiday†package included are accommodations in a villa with a plunge pool, all meals, 10 yoga classes and airport transfers. From $1, 995 a person. Available throughout 2017. Book by emailing info@thezanzibarcollection. com. And in St. Lucia, the Capella Marigot Bay Resort and Marina has the “Taxes at Bay†package, including four nights’ accommodations, all meals and alcoholic beverages, a couples massage, a sunset cruise, a zip line rain forest excursion and all taxes and service charges. From $3, 800 for two people. Available throughout 2017. In the United States, Kimpton Hotels Restaurants has several properties offering packages. Kimpton Hotel Allegro, in Chicago, is offering “†which includes accommodations without the city’s 17. 4 percent accommodation tax (the hotel covers the fee) a $25 daily food and beverage credit and a welcome amenity of prosecco and chocolate gold coins. From $114 a night. Valid through May 31. For the Kimpton Hotel Palomar, in Philadelphia, offers “Relax After You Tax,†which includes accommodations in the presidential suite, an couples massage and a bottle of sparkling wine. At $1, 040 a night. Available through May 31. | 1 | [
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FMD459 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On the night of June 18, Tupelo, Mississippi police officer Tyler Cook pulled over a vehicle for what authorities say was a routine traffic stop. Minutes later, Ronnie Shumpert, a 37-year-old Black father of five, was brutalized, maimed and tortured by that officer. Then he was shot dead.It was 9:38 pm when officer Cook pulled over the vehicle Shumpert was driving. The car belonged to his friend, Charles Foster. Foster was with Shumpert in the car. He witnessed much of what happened that night.Shumpert had a felony warrant for his arrest, yet there s no way the officer could have known that at the time of the traffic stop. He was never ID d. The car he was driving was not registered in his name. To officer Cook, he was just another Black man behind the wheel of a car.As soon as Cook pulled the car over Shumpert ran. Officer Cook pursued him with a police canine.According to witnesses, Shumpert was hiding underneath a house when Cook found him.Police say he immediately attacked the officer and the dog. Witnesses say otherwise. Foster and others say Shumpert immediately tried to surrender, but Cook turned the dog loose on the unarmed man. It attacked his groin, ripping off his testicles.Autopsy photos show that there were deep gashes across his body. Several of Shumpert s teeth were knocked out, others were shoved into his gums.By this time Ronnie Shumpert was likely bleeding out from a gash so large you could fit a baseball in it. His testicles had been shredded by a vicious attack dog and he was suffering from devastating facial wounds. Yet Cook claims that the unarmed father was still a threat. That s why he had to execute him.According to Foster, less than five minutes passed before officer Cook shot Shumpert dead. He fired four shots. Three bullets ripped through Ronnie Shumpert s chest. A fourth bullet entered his stomach.Police say it was ten minutes before an ambulance was called. The nearest hospital was less than a minute away. Video from the night of the lynching shows an ambulance arriving one hour after Cook fired his weapon.Officer Cook has had excessive force complaints filed against him before. The most recent complaint was filed less than two months ago.According to Tupelo s white city attorney, Ben Logan, any accusations of racial profiling, police brutality and corruption in connection with the death of Ronnie Shumpert are just ridiculous. During a press conference held on June 27, Logan showed no concern over the nature and extent of Shumpert s injuries. Instead, he accused the dead man s family of being instigators, claiming that their cries for justice are endangering the peace of the community. Rather than being upset over the brutal torture and unjustifiable death of an unarmed Tupelo resident, Logan went on to stress that he is upset about statements made by the Shumpert family attorney, Carlos Moore, saying they shine a bad light on attorneys.Moore is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the death of Ronnie Shumpert, as well as the entire Tupelo police department. The family is demanding that officer Cook be immediately terminated from the police force. They also want the canine that bit off Ronnie Shumpert s testicles retired immediately.Shumpert s family is also seeking answers from the police department. Some of the questions are about officer Cook s history and length of time on the force. They also want to know why the first ambulance arrived on the scene an hour after Ronnie Shumpert was shot.Aside from these demands, Moore is calling for the establishment of an independent citizen s review board to oversee accusations of police brutality and excessive force in Tupelo.Tupelo police are not equipped with body cameras. That s not acceptable in 2016.As reported by the Atlanta Black Star, New York Daily News and other media outlets, this was a modern day lynching. Out of sight of cameras, Officer Cook allowed his canine to mutilate Ronnie Shumpert in the most brutal way possible.Witness testimony shows that Shumpert was trying to surrender when Officer Cook and the canine attacked him. Autopsy photos demonstrate that after being brutalized by Cook and his attack dog, he was defenseless at the time the officer opened fire on him.Moore, accompanied by Ronnie Shumpert s family, held a press conference on June 27.Here s video from both the Shumpert family s press conference and the press conference held by Tupelo city attorney, Ben Logan, courtesy of Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal on YouTube. Image credit: Shumpert family photo | 0 | [
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FMD460 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Was Colin Kaepernick chosen by Ford to be the focal point of their latest advertising initiative? Claim summaries: A joke posted to the political humor section of Reddit was mistaken as genuine news by a number of social media users.
contextual information: As social media users sorted through a flurry of news articles, opinion pieces, calls for boycotts, and other hot takes in September 2018 about Colin Kaepernick's involvement in a new Nike ad campaign, some stumbled across what appeared to be a news article reporting that Ford USA was following Nike's example by making the former NFL quarterback the face of their new ad campaign: articles This item was not a social media link to a genuine news article, nor did the featured image show a genuine Ford advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick. This item was created as a joke for the political humor section of the Reddit social news site. Kaepernick became a controversial figure in 2016 when he started kneeling during the pre-game performance of the U.S. national anthem in protest of racial inequality and police brutality. A number of conservative football fans, including President Trump, maintained that Kaepernick's protest was disrespectful to veterans, so when Nike announced that the former football star would be featured in their latest ad campaign, social media users urged each other to boycott the brand and started posting images purportedly showing them destroying various pieces of Nike apparel. 2016 Twitter user @Patterico apparently found the videos of people burning their shoes to be amusing but noted that the entertainment value would increase if people were burning Ford F-150 trucks instead: I'll pay Ford $10 if they put Kaepernick in a commercial for F-150s so I can watch some dumbass torch his pickup on Twitter, who's with me Patterico (@Patterico) September 4, 2018 September 4, 2018 Reddit user u/fakenewsanchorman saw this tweet and decided to create a fake news item (note the username) stating that Ford USA had indeed named Kaepernick as their new brand ambassador. On 5 September 2018, his meme was posted to the Political Humor subreddit under the title "Please Make This Actually Happen." Political Humor That Reddit user admitted in the comments section that his image did not reflect a genuine news item, but we double-checked with FoxNews.com to see if reporter Judson Berger had filed any such report. This article does not appear on Berger's author page nor anywhere else on the Fox News web site. author page This bit of fake news may have sparked sparked interest in a genuine, albeit outdated, article about Ford's stance on the national anthem protests. In September 2017, the company officially took the side of the protesting players, saying that they respected the "individuals' right to express their views": article "We respect individuals' rights to express their views, even if they are not ones we share," the company said. "That's part of what makes America great" ... Martha Firestone Ford, owner and chairwoman of the Detroit Lions and a member of the Ford family, issued a statement criticizing President Trump for his comments. "Our game has long provided a powerful platform for dialogue and positive change in many communities throughout our nation," she said. "Negative and disrespectful comments suggesting otherwise are contrary to the founding principles of our country, and we do not support those comments or opinions." Abad-Santos, Alex. "Why the Social Media Boycott Over Colin Kaepernick Is a Win for Nike."
Vox. 6 September 2018. Sandritter, Mark. "A Timeline of Colin Kaepernicks National Anthem Protest and the Athletes Who Joined Him."
SB Nation. 25 September 2017. Wiener-Bronner, Danielle. "Ford: We Respect the Right of NFL Players to Protest."
CNN. 25 September 2017. | 0 | [
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FMD461 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday linked repealing a key component of Obamacare to their ambitious tax-cut plan, raising new political risks and uncertainties for the tax measure that financial markets have been monitoring closely for months. In comments that infuriated Democrats and left some senior Republicans unsure what comes next, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters: “We’re optimistic that inserting the individual mandate repeal would be helpful and that’s obviously the view of the Senate Finance Committee Republicans as well.†The finance panel, which had been in session for two days, abruptly adjourned on Tuesday as Democrats slammed the Republicans’ handling of their tax proposals, for which formal legislative language has still not been unveiled. Ron Wyden, the committee’s top Democrat, demanded more time for Democrats to discuss the issue “because we were never told that healthcare was going to be part of it and this just flew in literally out of nowhere in the last 20 minutes.†Tying Obamacare to the tax program introduces new risks for the Republicans and for President Donald Trump. Together, they have yet to score a major legislative win since Trump took power in January, even with control of Congress and the White House. The president, who has struggled in his relations with Congress, suggested in a tweet on Monday that the mandate repeal should be added to the tax plan, following up on a similar Nov. 3 tweet. No final decision on such a move was made at the Senate Republicans’ weekly luncheon, Senator Susan Collins told reporters afterward. She played a key role in July’s collapse of a years-long push by fellow Republicans to gut Obamacare, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, formally known as the Affordable Care Act. “I personally think that it complicates tax reform to put the repeal of the individual mandate in there,†Collins said. Asked if she would back the tax bill if a mandate repeal were added, she said: “I’m going to wait and see.†Senator John McCain, who was also central to his party’s failed Obamacare repeal earlier this year, was non-committal on putting the mandate repeal in the tax plan, saying: “I want to see the whole bill before I decide.†The Senate and House of Representatives are developing separate tax-cut packages they plan to reconcile eventually and send to Trump’s desk for enactment into law, an outcome Republicans are eager to achieve so they can face U.S. voters next year with at least one major legislative achievement. House Speaker Paul Ryan, asked why the repeal of the Obamacare mandate was not in the House version of the tax proposal, told Fox News on Tuesday: “We didn’t want to complicate tax reform, make it harder than it otherwise would be.†The House had already agreed to eliminate the mandate in a healthcare bill it passed in May, he noted, adding: “We want to see the Senate go first and see if they can get that done and then we’ll discuss whether or not it’s included at the end.†The Trump administration strongly supports the House version of the tax legislation, saying its passage would be “an important first step in achieving comprehensive tax reform,†the White House said in a statement on Tuesday. U.S. financial markets have been watching closely, with U.S. stocks rallying in recent months, partly on hopes of business tax cuts. They showed little reaction to Tuesday’s developments. The individual mandate requires Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty to Washington, a provision that Republicans have long opposed as government overreach. But the mandate plays a critical role in Obamacare by requiring young, healthy people, who might otherwise go without coverage, to purchase insurance and help offset the costs of covering sicker and older Americans. Underscoring the devastating consequences for Obamacare if the mandate were repealed, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last week that such a change would increase the number of Americans without health insurance by 13 million by 2027. The CBO added that mandate repeal would raise the average insurance policy premiums in the Obamacare marketplaces by about 10 percent annually over the next decade. Repealing the mandate would also lower the federal deficit by $338 billion over the same time period, the CBO said, a finding that several Republican senators said influenced the move. Eliminating the individual mandate would lower the number of Americans with health insurance, meaning the federal government would spend less on subsidizing coverage for lower- and middle-income people, making that money available to pay for tax cuts. Neither the Senate nor the House tax plans now includes repealing the mandate. But both plan would add about $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the federal deficit and the national debt, which now exceeds $20 trillion. Congressional Republicans hope to pass tax legislation by the end of the year and are moving fast, despite uncertainties. They hold only a razor-thin 52-48 majority in the Senate. If Democrats remain united in opposition, Republicans could afford to lose no more than two senators from within their own ranks and still secure passage of tax legislation. Democrats have dismissed the Republican plans as deficit-expanding giveaways to corporations and the wealthy. Representative Lloyd Doggett, a senior member of the House tax committee, said in a statement that the House tax bill was “just a way to curry favor with Washington special interests – awarding tax windfalls to large multinational corporations and the fortunate few that sit way atop the economic ladder.†| 1 | [
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FMD462 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Canada laid down a tough line ahead of talks on modernizing NAFTA on Monday, suggesting it could walk away if the United States pushed to remove a key dispute-settlement mechanism in the trade deal. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, giving the most substantive outline yet of Canada’s goals, said she was “very optimistic†the negotiations would be a success. North American Free Trade Agreement members Canada, Mexico and the United States hold their first session in Washington on Wednesday. Canada, heavily reliant on exports to the United States, opposes Washington’s push to scrap the so-called Chapter 19 dispute settlement mechanism, under which binational panels make binding decisions on complaints about illegal subsidies and dumping. The United States has frequently lost such cases. “Canada will uphold and preserve the elements in NAFTA that Canadians deem key to our national interest – including a process to ensure anti-dumping and countervailing duties are only applied fairly when truly warranted,†Freeland said in a speech at the University of Ottawa. Noting that Canada had withdrawn its chief negotiator from 1987 talks on a bilateral trade treaty with the United States over the same issue, Freeland said “our government will be equally resolute.†Freeland later sidestepped reporters’ questions about whether maintaining Chapter 19 was a make-or-break issue for Canada, saying she would let her U.S. counterparts know how important the matter was to Ottawa. Trade among the three nations has quadrupled since NAFTA came into effect in 1994, surpassing $1 trillion in 2015. But U.S. President Donald Trump regularly calls the treaty a disaster and has threatened to walk away from it unless major changes are made, citing U.S. job losses and a trade deficit with Mexico. Toronto trade lawyer Mark Warner said there few surprises in Freeland’s announcement, given Ottawa had already signaled its stance on major issues. “It’s the beginning of a negotiation. Everybody expects posturing,†he said by phone, noting Washington had reacted calmly to previous Canadian statements about the importance of dispute settlement. Freeland, who predicted there would be moments of drama during the talks, said Canada wanted a progressive trade deal featuring stricter environmental and labor standards as well as a focus on climate change, a concept Trump has little time for. Canada, like Mexico, sends the majority of its exports to the United States and would be hurt by U.S. protectionist moves. The United States runs a slight surplus in trade of goods and services with Canada, which has mounted a major outreach campaign to persuade U.S. business leaders and politicians that NAFTA is a success. “American partners have been listening,†Freeland said. “They understand ... our relationship, the greatest economic partnership in the world, is balanced and mutually beneficial.†Freeland stressed that Canada would protect tariffs and quotas that keep domestic dairy prices high and imports low. U.S. dairy farmers strongly dislike the system. A modernized NAFTA should take into account technological advances and make it easier for professionals to move from one member nation to another, she added. | 1 | [
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FMD463 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A nervous Nancy Pelosi responded Thursday to criticism from Democratic colleagues asking her to step down from her leadership post and President Donald Trump s subsequent tweet mocking her for helping Republicans politically.Some Republican members have said that it would be good for their party if Pelosi remains the top Democrat in the House. These remarks followed heavy criticism from Democratic lawmakers of Pelosi s leadership following Tuesday s special election losses in Georgia and South Carolina.Many within the Democratic party are calling for new leadership In other words, Nancy needs to go ASAP!President Trump went on Twitter to mockingly signal his support for the Pelosi:Conservatives like former speaker Newt Gingrich have been saying they hope Nancy Pelosi stays on as Minority Leader of the House She s good for the Republican Party. She s definitely on the hot seat right now but in true Pelosi fashion, she s oblivious to the reality that it s time to go. She even said she s a master legislator Um, no Check out the transcript of her comments at the press conference: So, you want me to sing my praises? Is that what you re saying? Why should I? Well, I m a uh um master legislator, I am a, uh, strategic, politically astute leader, I am a uh, uh, my, uh, uh my leadership is recognized by many around the country and that is why I m able to attract the support that I do, which is essential to our elections, sad to say. I m very pleased at the cooperation we re doing working with all the, um, social media and small donor community to change how we communicate but also how we attract resources, intellectual and financial, uh, to the party. I have experience in winning the congress. When people said to us in 05, you don t have a chance, be ready for a, uh, permanent Republican majority , I said, Harry Reid and I said, we don t accept that , so we proceeded, we took the president from 58 to 38, president Bush won the election. But the fact is, they will always make a target. Senator Reid was a target, Senator Daschle was a target, Tip O Neill was a target, I am a target, and they always want to choose our leaders, and usually they go after the most effective leaders because they want to take us diminish us uh the opportunity that we have. We have a Democratic caucus where members participate in the decisions and right now, the members are putting together our messaging as we go forward. I could have written something down on the page and said, this is what I think , but we don t do things that way, we listen to members, we re very proud of our, uh, policy and communications committee. Yikes!!!! | 0 | [
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FMD464 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Get short URL 0 37 0 0 A new government report released this week states that the Pentagon spent at least $58 billion over the last 20 years on weapons systems that not only were never built, but often never made it past the design phase.
The report, released by the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Frank Kendall, is an internal review of the Defense Department’s acquisition activities, and contains a chart of 23 pricey projects that received billions in initial funding but were later canceled. The report shows this happening as far back as 1997. © REUTERS/ Master Sgt. Kevin J. Gruenwald Pentagon Prepares to Start Raqqa Offensive Within Weeks
The Army’s Future Combat System was one of the most expensive of the doomed military-money pits, costing over $20 billion, with the RAH-66 Comanche attack and reconnaissance helicopter second with a $9.8 billion price tag before operations were ceased. Taken together these two programs account for 50 percent of what was deemed “sunk costs,” according to the Washington Examiner . The $3.7-billion National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, the $2.7-billion Lockheed Martin VH-71 helicopter, and the $2.5-billion JLENS air-defense blimp are a few of the other pricey and failed ventures detailed in the report.
Out of 23 projects, eight were able to spend all of their allocated money before the plug was pulled. ... | 0 | [
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FMD465 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton regained a double-digit lead over Republican rival Donald Trump this week, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday. The June 20-24 poll showed that 46.6 percent of likely American voters supported Clinton while 33.3 percent supported Trump. Another 20.1 percent said they would support neither candidate. Trump had enjoyed a brief boost in support following the June 12 mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, as he doubled down on his pledge to ban Muslims from entering the country, cutting Clinton’s lead to nine points. But Trump’s rise in popularity appeared to be only temporary, unlike his lasting surge among the Republican field last year after the attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino, California. Clinton’s 13.3 percentage point lead is about the same as she had before the Orlando attack. Trump’s slip this week came as he struggled to show that he can keep up with a Clinton campaign apparatus that has dwarfed his in size and funding. Campaign finance disclosures released earlier this week showed Trump started June with a war chest of just $1.3 million, a fraction of Clinton’s $42 million. Trump sought to ease concerns among his allies by saying that he could tap his “unlimited†personal wealth if needed, and also by bolstering efforts to raise money through fundraising events and online donations. Meanwhile, Republican leaders including House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker continued to express reservations about their new standard bearer, who has angered some in the party with his fiery rhetoric. Ryan and Walker both said over the past week that they felt Republicans should follow their “conscience†when deciding to support the party’s likely nominee, instead of urging party members to support him. The poll only captured some of the voter reaction to Britain’s decision in Thursday’s referendum to exit the European Union, a move that some pundits say suggests Trump’s insurgent candidacy has tapped into a broad and powerful anti-globalization wave sweeping Western countries. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online and included interviews with 1,201 likely voters in all 50 states. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3.3 percentage points. | 1 | [
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FMD466 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It seems that Fox News repeated decisions to shower of Donald Trump with adoration and excuses has gotten to now-former Fox News host Megyn Kelly. That s right now former. According to the New York Times, Kelly will be jumping ship to NBC where she will hist a daytime news and discussion program, anchor her own weekend show, and be a part of the network s special political coverage.This may or may not come as a shock to Fox, whose ousted former chairman Roger Ailes sexually harassed Kelly for about a decade, but perhaps they might be having some hindsight issues surrounding their recent decision to side with Trump over Kelly when The Donald was bullying her on social media, regular media, and everywhere else imaginable after she challenged him during a debate.Whatever her reason for leaving, she is passing up a pretty sweet $20 million a year that Fox offered her to stay after her current contract expires. NBC has been crystal clear that they can not and will not match that money. Sources declined to tell the New York Times what, exactly, Kelly s annual salary will be, but she is almost assuredly taking a pay cut based on past remarks.While it is entertaining to see Kelly stick it to Fox News, we have no choice but to wonder why NBC would hire someone who thinks that Santa and Jesus are both real (and white dudes), who blamed Sandra Bland for her own death, who thinks that pepper spray is a food product, essentially, and who has done and said so many horrific things over the years that a truly functional society would treat her as a pariah though, of course, she was one of the few right-wing voices who actually stood up to Donald Trump to some degree.Naturally, Trump fans are celebrating the news:Megyn Kelly is moving to NBC! Hahaha Feminazi cunt. #TakeHerCoat #MAGA GINGER JESUS (@1BOSSTAFARI) January 3, 2017"Megyn Kelly" good riddance to the worthless liberal loving whore now she could go lick Democratic balls all day long good riddance trash!!! apgovea123 (@apgovea1) January 3, 2017Megyn Kelly is an attention whore. She's your typical media slut. Patrick Henry (@FightNowAmerica) January 3, 2017Thank God Megyn Kelly is leaving!' She's a hateful shrew! She belongs on lying NBC~used to like her. She got so full of herself. Fame whore Michele Lee Johnson (@MLeeJohnson) January 3, 2017YUGE 2017! #Trump will be president, #conservative #SCOTUS judge will be installed, & @megynkelly 2 leave @FoxNews! #maga #tcot #tlot #ccot pic.twitter.com/JYNWBkpEFZ Michaela Marie (@Momofonly3) January 3, 2017#FAKENEWS Megyn Kelly take your fake victimhood & biased liberal opinions elsewhere #LiberalNBC #goodriddance #MAGA pic.twitter.com/ItMOOV6pXk Deplorable David B (@DBHnBuckhead) January 3, 2017No big surprise, @megynkelly leaving @FoxNews , preferring @NBCNews After her #pizzagate plush piece I knew the end was near #FoxNews #MAGA pic.twitter.com/h9nUuyFCtJ Michael DC (@Michaeldcart) January 3, 2017In a Facebook post, Kelly thanked her viewers for their love:(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/ar_AR/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Over a dozen years ago I started at Fox News in a job that would change my life. Now, I have decided to end my time at Megyn Kelly 3 2017Is Kelly s decision to move to NBC or their decision to hire her a good thing? Only time will tell; it depends on how much of her horrible, bigoted Fox News persona was an act. In any case, her departure leaves her former network with a huge, gaping hole in its lineup one they will likely fill with someone a thousand times more horrible than Megyn Kelly could ever be.Featured image via screengrab | 0 | [
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FMD467 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A student at a Michigan high school stood up for his right to wear a Confederate flag shirt to school. There is not a rule against it but the principal felt it would interfere with learning. The effort to cleanse America of our past is in full force. Confederate monuments in different states have been removed and South Carolina removed the confederal flag from its capitol grounds. Do you feel this is freedom of speech or that the flag shouldn t be worn to school? CALEDONIA, Mich. (WOOD) A student at Caledonia High School was outraged when he was told to change his shirt, which showed the Confederate battle flag, or go home Wednesday morning.Donovan Stokes, a junior, said he was approached by the high school principal about his shirt. I wore everything as proper. This is just a shirt; it s the rebel flag. It was bullying. They were bullying me to take off my shirt and I did not have to go home. They cannot send me home. That is losing my education, said Stokes. The principal gave me two options and I requested a letter asking why he had to take the shirt off, she said.The letter stated because of what that flag is used to symbolize by others, we feel it could contribute to a hostile environment for many of our students. Jolene Stokes said she does not believe the shirt would create a hostile environment and her son believes that removing the shirt infringed on his freedom of expression. It s more of like a history thing and it s just a war flag from back in the day, and I don t think it meant anything by it, he said.The school district disagreed, saying it has a responsibility to create a safe and orderly learning environment. Any type of attire that might challenge that, might create disorder or disruption to the environment, we have responsibility to prohibit that attire. We love freedom of speech and we educate kids and we want them to know that they do have the right to stand up and speak their mind and share their opinions and we value that as much as anybody else. At the same time, if that is going to disrupt our educational setting, that has to come first. That climate that we create for students to learn and grow has to come first, so that s why we have to be able to respond the way we are responding, Caledonia Community Schools Superintendent Randy Rodriguez said.Rodriguez said it is especially important during considering the recent discussions in the nation about race and the battle flag. We are in a greater time of sensitivity right now for many reasons that have gone around the country, but also locally. I want all of our children to feel like this is a place that they belong, this is a place that they can learn and we re going to protect them all and we re going love them all, Rodriguez said.Donovan Stokes said he understands why people see the rebel flag as offensive. I can see how people could be offended by it due to the slavery thing, but that s because of the education. We are being taught in schools that this is not right, not just. I understand how people would totally get offended by this. People want to think of this as a hate flag, but this is really a patriotic flag than anything, he said.However, Grand Valley State University Associate Professor of History Scott Stabler said that historically, the flag was a symbol of resistance to the Civil Rights Movement and the battle flag was not the official flag of the Confederacy. It s a historical myth that it symbolizes something other than the Confederacy, which was all about sustaining the idea of human bondage. I think that people that carry the Confederate flag probably in their minds believe it stands for southern heritage, white southern heritage, but I don t think they have any clue as to what southern white heritage is, Stabler said.Stabler believes this situation could be an opportunity for learning. I think it s a point of learning what the student doesn t understand, what the flag might mean to people of African descent even to white people, because it means something to me, too, Stabler said.Stokes ultimately decided to take the shirt off rather than go home. The flag shirt is a tank top and he was wearing another long-sleeve shirt under it.He said a similar incident happened to him in middle school when he wore a belt showing the rebel flag. He said the student handbook does not directly state anywhere that he can t wear that kind of attire. He said he is not a racist and was not at all trying to promote hate or racism.Read more: WoodTV | 0 | [
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FMD468 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Trump Camp Accused Of Anti-Semitism President Trump Has Shattered Jews' American Idyll November 14, " Haaretz " - American Jews have transformed virtually overnight from insiders to outsiders; the appointment of ex-Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon, an accused anti-Semite, as chief strategist, is bound to exacerbate the tensions.
By Chemi Shalev WASHINGTON Those were the best of times, arguably, but these may be the worst of times. Thats the way most American Jews must feel as they wake up with a massive hangover from the shock election results and the reality that Donald Trump will soon be President of the United States.
Whatever differences American Jews may have had with Barack Obama over the Iran nuclear deal and Middle East peace, theyve never had a president who was more in tune with their Jewish and liberal essence.
Obama was the realization of the American Jewish vision of a multicultural society, a dream come true for a generation of civil rights activists. He promoted and embodied the liberal ideals that American Jews are more attached to than any other religious group in America. And he was more knowledgeable about American Jewish culture and Yiddishkeit than any previous president, bar none. Even when they disagreed with him, most American Jews, with the exception of the vocal minority that hated his guts, viewed Obama as a mensch.
It is probably no coincidence that during his tenure, American Jews reached a pinnacle of social and cultural acceptance. Being American Jews was hip. It was cool. It was the thing to be. From Jon Stewart to Jerry Seinfeld, from Joe Lieberman to Bernie Sanders, Jews seemed to be more entrenched than ever before in the American mainstream. Pew Research Polls repeatedly confirmed that Jews were the most loved and most admired religious group in all of America. Mashiach-zeit, old timers would say, but with a note of caution, because if Jewish history teaches anything, it is that all things must pass.
The election of Donald Trump has shattered the Jewish idyll, all across the board. Although one must give the president-elect the benefit of the doubt that he is not an anti-Semite himself, he has frequently promoted disparaging Jewish stereotypes in his personal statements. Sunday evenings appointment of former Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon as chief strategist in the White House is bound to exacerbate Jewish tensions. He is considered the standard bearer for the racist, anti-immigrant alt-right movement and has been accused of harboring anti-Semitic sentiments himself.
Trump has repeatedly and unapologetically disseminated white supremacist tweets. His campaign has used anti-Semitic symbols that Trump has failed to disown even when advised of their offensive content. He has distanced himself from his neo-Nazi supporters only under duress. And under his wings, America has seen an unprecedented outburst of blunt and naked hatred of Jews, which has only gotten worse since his election.
In recent months, most prominent Jewish journalists and other public critics of Trump have been harassed by anti-Semites on social media, in their mail at home and, in some cases, in close physical contact. Swastikas have been painted at schools. Jewish students have been threatened, taunted, told that Adolf Hitler was right all along. Along with Muslims, Hispanics, and African Americans, they are being targeted as the sworn enemies of the America First Weltanschauung that Trump is bringing with him to the White House.
The shock that many Jews are feeling now is partly of their making. In recent years, the American Jewish establishment has willingly enlisted in the Israeli governments effort to depict ever-widening circles of anti-Israeli agitation on the left as anti-Semitism. The fight against BDS and the efforts to portray it as hatred of Jews in another form has consumed the time, energy and resources of the American Jewish leadership, with the possible exception of the Anti-Defamation League.
Meanwhile, virulent and classic anti-Semitism lurking just under the radical rights surface was virtually ignored, concealed by the mainstream right-wings overwhelming support for Israel. Even mentioning it was considered to be an anti-Israeli provocation.
Trumps triumph has unleashed the pent up resentment against Jews. His reluctance to tackle manifestations of racism and white supremacism among his supporters has energized and empowered it. If he and his advisers dont take assertive steps soon, anti-Jewish agitators will feel they have a license from the White House to do as they please. They will get bolder, grow stronger, recruit new adherents and increasingly resort to violence: weve seen it before.
But even if brazen anti-Semitic incidents are quelled or die down by themselves, there is no denying that Jews have transformed virtually overnight from insiders to outsiders. Not only did they vote overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton, prominent conservative Jews who could have allayed their concerns are the ones who have distanced themselves from Trump over the course of the campaign and will play no role in his administration.
American Jewish liberals are bound to feel alienated from their own government in way theyve never felt before. Most of the values, goals and policy objectives of the Trump administration, even if they turn out to be a paler and more palatable version of his campaign rhetoric, are diametrically opposed to those of most American Jews. They support immigration, pluralism, multiculturalism, social reform, government intervention, separation of church and state, gay marriage, abortion rights and on and on. It is easy to see, in fact, why so many of Trumps radical supporters would view the Jews as their mortal enemies.
As Shmuel Rosner rightly points out for the wrong reasons, Trump may ultimately divide Israeli and American Jews. But the reason for that is not limited, as Rosner asserts, to the yet to be proven assumption that American Jews will resent their Israeli counterparts for liking Trump because he is pro-Israel. It is because Trumps core message, his reactionary, nativist, chauvinistic, anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant and mainly anti-Muslim worldview is shared by far too many, though far from all Israelis, and is embraced by its ruling coalition. And because many Israeli Jews are indifferent to right-wing anti-Semitism and indeed share right-wing disdain toward the liberalism of American Jews.
Of course, all may not be bleak. Perhaps Trump will fight the anti-Semitism on his radical fringe with increasing vigor. Possibly his policies will be less offensive to American Jews. Perhaps the American Jewish establishment will produce a leadership capable of meeting these trying times. Who knows, maybe some American Jews will finally realize they should support Israeli Jews who share their worldview rather than a government that doesnt.
And if worse comes to worst, to paraphrase Casablanca, liberal American Jews will always have Israel itself. Moderate, liberal Israelis, beleaguered and on the point of despair, will flock to the airport to welcome them with open arms. Mashiach-zeit, they will tell themselves, in awe. Š Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved | 0 | [
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FMD469 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Look! Up on the screen! It’s a mystery! It’s a sitcom! Oh, and it’s a superhero show! As the titans Marvel and DC, having already colonized movie theaters, take over ever larger chunks of television and streaming video, they’ve wisely started to mix things up. A new series set in one of their superhero universes just might be capeless, or bring in costumed crime fighters as window dressing. Marvel’s “Jessica Jones†on Netflix largely takes the form of a noirish mystery, while its “Legion†on FX (beginning next week) looks like a surrealist psychological thriller. “Powers†on the PlayStation Network is essentially “Law Order: Superhumans. †Perhaps the least superheroish superhero show, though, is NBC’s new “Powerless†(beginning Thursday). It’s a comedy, for one thing, part of a small tradition that includes “The Tick†and the campy, 1960s “Batman. †(A promo for the show is narrated by that Batman, Adam West.) And it’s set in a particularly nonheroic corner of the DC universe: the drab offices of Wayne Security, where a cousin of Batman oversees a motley crew designing products that keep civilians from becoming collateral damage in superhero battles. It’s a nifty, layered premise. For one thing, it’s a dig at the big, soulless tentpole movies in which teams of heroes lay waste to cities full of screaming little humans, particularly the “Avengers†films from DC’s rival, Marvel. Seen from another angle — as a traditional workplace sitcom — the angle works just as well. What office doesn’t make people feel powerless? It’s hard to judge how that premise will be developed, though, because NBC made only one episode available for review. (The pilot was originally commissioned in 2015, and since then the show’s creator, Ben Queen, has left.) It’s quirky and pleasant but not terribly funny, and the comic situations are standard office sitcom: The new supervisor is hazed the disgruntled workers sort out into nice, mean and wacky stereotypes the boss spends all his time trying to get his cousin Bruce on the phone. Vanessa Hudgens (“Spring Breakersâ€) stars as the company’s relentlessly perky new head of RD, but if the show succeeds it will be because of an ensemble that includes distinctive performers like Alan Tudyk as the feckless Van Wayne and Danny Pudi, Ron Funches and Christina Kirk as the cranky workers waiting to be whipped into shape. In the pilot, costumed heroes appear only in the amusing credits sequence and in an opening on an elevated train that plays like an ’ scene from a Hollywood musical. Add a few songs, and it could be from “Meet Me in St. Louis,†except for the supervillain tearing up the train tracks and the superhero — an actual DC character, Crimson Fox — who saves the day. It’s clever and invigorating, and about the only thing in the pilot that actually makes the connection between office workers and superheroes. “Powerless†is a cute idea for a show, but it will need a lot more scenes like that to turn into a worthwhile series. | 1 | [
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FMD470 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Transcript for Hillary Clinton's Speech to Goldman Sachs Leaked? Claim summaries: A circulating purported transcript of Hillary Clinton's first speech to Goldman Sachs was originally written as a satire piece.
contextual information: In February 2016, the transcriptof a speech Hillary Clinton purportedly gave to Goldman Sach's on 4 June 2013 started circulating online: The following is a leaked transcript of Hillary Clintons 1st speech to Goldman Sachs delivered on 6/04/2013. Two other speeches are also rumored to be in circulation. This is the full transcript. Secretary Clinton received $225,000 for this speech. HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Lloyd [Blankfein], and thanks to everyone at Goldman Sachs for welcoming me today. Im delighted to be back among friends, colleagues, collaborators, supporters, kindred spirits Let me jump right in. You know, over the past few months, there have been popular concerns about an economy that still isnt delivering for the majority of Americans. Its not delivering the way that they feel it should, that they feel entitled to. Most Americans that you speak to, speak a populist rhetoric that claims it is stacked for those at the top, that those of you here have it too good. (Laughter) But we know the hopes that the little people have for their future things like school, job, food, clothing on their backs all of those little things would not be possible without your leadership and innovation. Several publications,such asBSNews, CounterPunch,andDissident Voice, lent credence to thetranscripts when they published them in full.These web sites all attributed itstext to author K.J. Noh, who is not affiliated with the Clinton campaign. BSNews CounterPunch Dissident Voice While the aforementioned web sites are not exclusively satirical publications, they do occasionally (as is the case above)publishsatire: BSNews, in stark contrast, is here to tell you the truth. We pride ourselves on covering the news stories the corporate media wont dare touch. We will from time to time take satirical side swipes at journalists within the MSM (see Special Reports) and we will be producing spoof media animations (see Podcast) but we will never deliberately lie or mislead OUR audience about the most important news stories of the day. While we couldn't find any indication that BSNewshad labeled the above-quoted story as satire,Counter Punchfeatured a "satire alert" at the top of its article and theDissident Voice(where thepurported transcript of Clinton's speech first appeared) filed the story as piece of fiction: The transcripts of Hillary Clinton's speeches to Goldman Sachs have not been leaked or published anywhere on the internet. When the Democratic presidential candidate was asked about the speeches she made during a town hall meeting on 18 February 2016, she said that she would releasethemwhen the other candidates did the same: release At another town hall, on Feb. 18, a man in the audience pleaded, Please, just release those transcripts so that we know exactly where you stand. Mrs. Clinton had told him, I am happy to release anything I have when everybody else does the same, because every other candidate in this race has given speeches to private groups. | 0 | [
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FMD471 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A British-Iranian charity worker serving a jail sentence in Tehran received a letter from ex-prime minister David Cameron that showed she had ties to the British government, a prosecutor said on Tuesday, according to Mizan, the news site of the Iranian judiciary. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organization, is serving a five-year jail sentence after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran s clerical establishment. The prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said the letter demonstrated Zaghari-Ratcliffe s importance to the British authorities but he did not say when it was sent or provide any other details about it. A spokeswoman at the British Foreign Office said she was not immediately able to comment on whether Cameron had written a letter, but confirmed that both he and his successor, Theresa May, had raised the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case with Iranian authorities. We will continue to raise all our dual national detainees, including Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe s case, with the Iranian government at every available opportunity, she added. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested by the elite Revolutionary Guards in April 2016 at a Tehran airport, as she was about to return to Britain with her two-year-old daughter after a family visit. Her family and the Thomson Reuters Foundation have both denied the charges against her. Thomson Reuters is a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News. Last week her family said Iranian authorities had opened a new case against Zaghari-Ratcliffe, leveling charges that could carry a sentence of 16 additional years in prison. The new charges include joining and receiving money from organizations working to overthrow the Islamic Republic, and attending a demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy in London, the family said. The Foreign Office spokeswoman referred Reuters to a statement it issued last week in which it expressed concern that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was facing additional charges and said it was seeking more information from the Iranian authorities. On Tuesday Jafari Dolatabadi also said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was responsible for teaching online journalism for the BBC Persian language service with the goal of attracting and teaching individuals for propaganda operations against Iran , Mizan reported. Francesca Unsworth, director of the BBC World Service Group, said earlier this year that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had never worked for the BBC s Persian service. | 1 | [
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FMD472 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The email claiming to be a secret shopper opportunity for Whole Foods Market Research is a fraudulent hoax. Claim summaries: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission first warned about this scam in 2020.
contextual information: In October 2022, we received reader mail about a "Whole Foods Market Research" scam. The scam arrives in the form of an email, text, or mailed letter, claiming that the recipient has been chosen to be a secret shopper for Whole Foods Market. The goal of the scammer is to get the recipient to deposit a check into their bank account. However, unbeknownst to the recipient, the check is fake. The scammer quickly tasks the recipient with buying gift cards and then providing the identifying details on the front and back. Alternatively, the scammer might ask the recipient to initiate a wire transfer or money order to send back a partial amount of the funds from the check. The scammer claims that the recipient can keep a portion of the funds for their work. However, again, the check is fake, so recipients are spending their own money to buy gift cards for the scammers. We reviewed one example of this scam that arrived as an email. It came from [email protected], which was not an official Whole Foods email address. It claimed to come from a person named Jerry A. Wallace, a purported human resources (HR) representative. A previous version of this scam named Wallace as a "project manager," according to scampulse.com. We found no evidence of a person with this name being a real employee of Whole Foods. The original email, which contained several misspellings of store names, read as follows: [email protected] wrote: Attn: (name removed) You submitted your information to one of our recruitment agencies to work as a Whole Foods Market Research representative. Your details have been verified, and you have been shortlisted as one of our representatives. Here is your unique I.D. number MS6953; your details have been stored in our database. Our company has recently been contracted to conduct a quality survey on Target, King Soopers, Walmart Stores, Best Buy, Post Office, CVS, Rite Aid, eBay, Kmart, Pizza Hut, Kroger, Walgreen, Dillons, or 7-Eleven, etc. We have shortlisted a few representatives from various states and cities to visit any of the stores listed above randomly, to buy merchandise and share their experience via our feedback Checklist/Assessment form. You will receive an envelope containing a Cashier's Check and the Instructions Letter. The Checklist/Assessment Form will be sent/attached to your mail. Please signify your interest with a Yes, I'm Ready. Thank you. Best Regards, Whole Foods Market Research HR Personnel: Jerry A. Wallace Cell: (216) 239-2582 We called the phone number listed in the email. After several rings, a voice message was played that said, "The TextNow subscriber you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave your message after the tone." The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) previously published a full report on this scam back in 2020. People spotted signs of a fake check scam in the bogus Whole Foods secret shopper offer (which was from a scammer, not really Whole Foods). That's when someone sends you a check and convinces you to deposit it and quickly send them money. In this scam, the recruiter would send shoppers a check for more than $2,000, and they would: 1. Cash or deposit the check immediately. 2. Buy gift cards with most of the money. 3. Keep about $450 as their pay. 4. Scratch the coating off the gift cards to show the PIN codes. 5. Send pictures of the cards' front and back (with the codes) to the recruiter. If anyone ever tells you to deposit a check, withdraw money, and send it to someone, that's a scam. When the check later turns out to be fake, the bank will want the money back. And if anyone tells you to go buy gift cards and share the PIN numbers, that's a scam, too. Once the scammer has the PIN, they also have all the money from the cards. The FTC said this scam can be reported at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. They also added, "If you already cashed a fake check and sent money to a scammer, find out how to report to gift card, wire transfer, and money order businesses." In sum, both we and the FTC advise consumers not to respond to any emails, texts, or mailed letters that invite recipients to work as a secret shopper for "Whole Foods Market Research." | 0 | [
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FMD473 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday easily passed a bill requiring federal environmental regulators to act faster when lead contamination is found in drinking water. The bill passed 416-2. It was crafted by Michigan Representatives Dan Kildee, a Democrat, and Fred Upton, a Republican, in the wake of Flint’s drinking water crisis. The measure requires the Environmental Protection Agency to notify the public when concentrations of lead in drinking water rise above mandated levels and to create a plan to improve communication between the agency, utilities, states, and consumers. In 2014, under a state-appointed emergency manager, Flint, a city of 100,000, switched water supplies to the Flint River, from Detroit’s system as part of a plan to save money in the poverty-stricken city. The more corrosive river water leached lead from aging pipes. Thousands of children are believed to have ingested dangerous levels of lead, a toxin that can harm brains and cause other health problems. The bill “wouldn’t have prevented Flint, but it would have caught it far sooner,†Kildee, who is from Flint, said after the vote. The measure must be passed by the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama before becoming law. Other measures in Congress to provide Flint with millions of dollars in aid to deal with the crisis face an uncertain future. Kildee has also introduced a bill to provide about $700 million in federal aid, with a match in funding from Michigan. That and other measures languished as Democrats and Republicans struggled to agree on where the funds would come from. The Department of Agriculture said on Thursday it would temporarily allow Michigan to use funds from its Women, Infants and Children program for low income citizens to conduct lead testing. The department estimated some 3,800 people could get tested in this way. | 1 | [
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FMD474 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It s no secret that Californians aren t really fans of Donald Trump and Trump can t stand California. California rejected Trump during the election by a whopping 30 percent margin. In turn, Trump has called the most populous state in the union, out of control, and threatened to withhold money if they don t bend to Trump s will. California s governor, Jerry Brown, on Meet the Press on Sunday, said Trump would be picking a fight with the wrong governor.At specific issue is that fact that many of California s cities are sanctuary cities, which means it s safe for undocumented residents to report crimes without fear of deportation. Now, anyone with half a brain knows that people reporting crimes is one of the biggest weapons against criminals, but Trump tells his supporters that sanctuary cities are hotbeds of danger. They aren t. In fact because people can report crime, they are typically safer.California is not backing down to Trump s bullying. If he pulls funding from California, California is going to retaliate and that s the last thing Trump wants. We do have something called the ninth and the tenth amendment, he stated. The federal government just can t arbitrarily for political reasons punish the State of California, that s number one. Number two, California is America. We re 12 percent. We re a key part. The export capital going into the Pacific. We re the innovation capital, high tech, agriculture, 40 to 50 billion dollar industry. You don t want to mess with California because you re going to mess with the economy, and that could blow up in your face in a gigantic recession, and roll the Republicans right out of this town. Source: NBC NewsHere s the video: Brown isn t just talking out his you-know-what. Without California, the country is in a whole lot of hurt. Not only is it the largest state, it s also the 6th largest economy in the world. Its economy surpasses France and India. Or, if Trump voters need to see something a bit more tangible, let s just say that without California, the cost of food (if you can find it) will go through the roof.California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list goes on and on).Without California, supply of all these products in the United States and abroad would dip, and in the first few years, a few might be nearly impossible to find. Orchard-based products in particular, such as nuts and some fruits, would take many years to spring back.Price surges would eventually become the larger issue. Rising prices would force Americans to consume more grains, which are locked in a complicated price-dependent relationship with fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. When the price of produce increases, people eat more grain. When the price of grain drops, people eat more fruits and vegetables. (In fact, in some parts of the world, wheat and rice are the only proven Giffen goods a product in which decreasing prices lead to decreasing demand.) Young people and the poor in America, more than others, eat less fresh food when prices rise.Source: SlateBeyond that, though, could you imagine, if just once, President Obama threatened to pull funding from, let s say, Texas a state which was consistently hostile to the Democratic President. Republicans and many Democrats would have had a fit and they would have been right. Donald Trump works for us, all of us, not just the people who voted for him. It s time he learn that and Jerry Brown is the perfect person to teach the lesson.Featured image via video screen capture. | 0 | [
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FMD475 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Would you die to save the President? What if it was President Trump? A longtime secret service agent recently risked time in prison to promise the world that if she is all that stands between Trump and a bullet, the bullet wins.Kerry O Grady, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service s Denver district, didn t mention Trump directly in her Facebook post, but she didn t have to. Her words make it clear whom she means: As a public servant for nearly 23 years, I struggle to not violate the Hatch Act. So I keep quiet and skirt the median. To do otherwise can be a criminal offense for those in my position. Despite the fact that I am expected to take a bullet for both sides. But this world has changed and I have changed. And I would take jail time over a bullet or an endorsement for what I believe to be disaster to this country and the strong and amazing women and minorities who reside here. Hatch Act be damned. I am with Her. The Hatch Act prohibits executive branch members aside from the President, Vice President, and other selected people, from making partisan statements. The Hatch Act is designed both to protect employees from being forced to support a particular candidate, but it also acts to limit the political activities of executive branch employees.After several days, O Grady removed the post. It was an internal struggle for me but as soon as I put it up, I thought it was not the sentiment that I needed to share because I care very deeply about the mission, she said. However, she has not stopped posting her thoughts on social media. She also changed her cover photo to images of the Women s March in Denver, writing all of these women represent me! Proud to say it! #nasty and uploaded a photo of Princess Leia, captioned A woman s place is in the resistance. My government is the most important thing to me, she says. I serve at the pleasure of the president, but I still have the First Amendment right to say things. The Secret Service refuses to discuss the situation, but that the posts will be seriously and swiftly investigated. While some may criticize her for her posts, she probably made the right decision. After all, he is already threatening to march on American cities, isn t he?featured image via screengrab | 0 | [
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FMD476 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Fox News most popular prime time host, Bill O Reilly, responded to First Lady Michelle Obama s speech at the 2016 Democratic Convention and ended up defending the practice of slavery.Responding to Mrs. Obama s comment during her address that she lived in a White House built by slaves, O Reilly referred to himself as a history teacher and argued that the slaves who worked on the White House were well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government. O Reilly also said in his commentary, Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, but there were others working as well. In the day after Obama s speech, other conservatives amazingly criticized the First Lady, trying to play gotcha on her remarks which were actually a positive statement about America, pointing out the progress from slavery to a black First Family.The fact-checking site Politifact even had to release a report in response to these conservative complaints, including some who said the building was not worked on by slaves. They rated the First Lady s speech as True. Journalist Jesse J. Holland also discussed the role of slaves in building the White House in his 2016 book, The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House. With the invention of steam shovels still several years away, these slaves dug for the clay on site with hand shovels, working day and night to get the raw material to the skilled brick makers and at the same time, opening up ground on the site for the space that would become the White House s foundation and cellar, Holland wrote. The identity of these slaves and where they came from has been lost, he wrote.Obama s statement is true, Holland told PolitiFact.The Obamas have driven the conservative movement crazy. No matter what they are for, the right finds a way to support the opposite. Even the indefensible.Featured image via screen capture | 0 | [
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FMD477 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Zoltan Fenyvesi s offer to host migrants for a free holiday in his guest house set off a backlash in this southern Hungarian village. His van s tires were slashed and angry locals railed against him. He says there was even a death threat. The controversy also triggered the resignation of the long-time mayor of Ocseny, a quiet village nestled among swathes of farmland 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Budapest, as well as national debate about Hungarians tolerance levels. As right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban gears up for an election in April that he is widely expected to win, this four-bedroom guesthouse, just across the street from an elementary school and a Catholic church, has become an unlikely flash point for anti-migrant sentiment. Orban has taken a hard line on immigration which has included a barbed-wire fence on Hungary s southern border and tough laws criticized by human rights groups. He has also referred to the importance of maintaining ethnic homogeneity . The measures have kept out migrants and shored up support for his Fidesz party since 2015 when at the peak of the crisis hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East crossed Hungary on their way to western Europe. Billboard campaigns, television ads and questionnaires sent to Hungarians to bolster Orban s platform have contributed to a surge in anti-migrant sentiment to record levels according to a survey by Tarki, a think-tank. Last week s town hall meeting in Ocseny to discuss Fenyvesi s offer, raised jointly with Migration Aid, a group set up to help migrants, descended into angry shouting and locals voicing fears of violence and robbery if migrants showed up. Who can guarantee that the little boys and girls will not be harmed, like we heard of in other countries? shouted a middle-aged woman in footage taken at the scene by local media. Who will protect you if they sneak into your property at night and beat you to death? she said. At one point, as Fenyvesi tried to make his case for hosting the migrants amid a cacophony of boos and whistles, a man walked up to him and took the microphone, prompting applause from the scores of agitated locals gathered at the town hall. I thought I would be able to explain this (his offer of a free holiday), said Fenyvesi, who has already hosted poor children, including Roma, at his guesthouse, which led to no such furor. Fenyvesi told Reuters that he had wanted to set a positive example after learning that a previous attempt to host some migrants for a holiday near Lake Balaton fell through due to local opposition. It turned out otherwise. Very soon people started shouting and told me squarely they will have none of this, Fenyvesi said in an interview. Once the meeting was over, Fenyvesi said he had received a death threat in the street from a local he did not want to identify. Later that night, someone slashed the tires of his van parked outside the guesthouse. Tires on his son s vehicle were also cut. Police have launched an investigation. Fenyvesi abandoned the project because of the outcry. When 54-year-old Orban, whose Fidesz party is well ahead of its main rivals in opinion polls, was asked whether his government bore any responsibility for the anti-migrant feelings expressed by villagers in Ocseny, he said: People have been lied to on the migrant issue so much, that they do not believe it is only children coming. Orban told reporters ahead of a European Council meeting: I fully understand them and it is very right that they have expressed their opinion so resolutely, so loudly and clearly. With the main opposition Socialists in disarray after the resignation of their candidate for prime minister, nationalist Jobbik is emerging as Orban s main challenger in the 2018 vote. Dressed in a dark blue suit, Balazs Szabo, a Jobbik council member in nearby Szekszard called on Fenyvesi at the debate in the town hall to devote his goodwill to poor Hungarians and children in need instead. His remarks earned a big round of applause. Szabo, Jobbik s candidate for parliament, said locals invited him to the event. Janos Fulop, the independent mayor of Ocseny who quit because of the row, said there was no legal recourse to stop legally residing refugees coming to Ocseny, if they wanted to. Some of his local critics deemed that stance too soft even though Fulop himself is opposed to the idea of mass immigration. But if there are such people here already, the country must meet its obligations under international law, he said. Official data showed 881 migrants received some sort of state protection in Hungary, a country of about 10 million people, in 2017, including 75 granted refugee status. I hope that people will find calm and talk to one another, but this will take time, Fulop said. He resigned after seeing the divisions both in the village and within the local council. Reuters tried to interview more than 20 locals on a week-day morning near the guesthouse, to no avail. The few who spoke off-camera expressed relief that no migrants would come. With Fidesz dominating the public discourse on migration, Orban s government announced a campaign aimed at Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros for what it said was a plan to bring a stream of refugees to Europe. His spokesman has described the government s portrayal of him as fantasy . Orban has vowed to fight a ruling by the European Union s top court that dismissed a challenge by Hungary and Slovakia against migrant quotas that reignited an east-west row that has shaken EU cohesion. Data from Tarki shows the proportion of people deemed as xenophobic shot up to 60 percent this year, rising 19 points from two years ago when the migrant issue came to the fore and more than double the levels seen in 2010, when Orban took power. I do not think this is all due to the government s behavior, but it plays a very large role nonetheless, Tarki researcher Endre Sik said. Ocseny is not some sort of hell-hole from this regard, he said. These are average people, who have displayed non-average behavior, the groundwork of which was laid very firmly by the government. The government declined to comment on the Tarki findings. Orban s chief of staff, Janos Lazar has said such feelings of distrust were inherent in Hungarians anyway. In a rare display of solidarity, the Roma mayor of Cserdi, a poor village also in southern Hungary, told local media that he would host any refugees rejected from Ocseny. | 1 | [
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FMD478 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Below is the comment in red that MoveOn.org put up before the video. Notice how they say NOTHING about the budget but just state that the program helps people. They re clearly fear mongering with vague information and NO FACTS. If you would like to go to the post on Facebook and hammer them with the statement below that s DIRECTLY from Meals on Wheels, here s the link: MoveOn.org Facebook Post On Meals on Wheels Trump wants to cut Meals on Wheels Meals on Wheels America is one program Donald J. Trump wants to cut in his federal budget plan. It s especially outrageous because according to one Meals on Wheels director, we re delivering a meal but we re delivering a lot more because sometimes we re the only people that this person may see Share the message. Notice how the people in the video just speak about how the program helps people BUT doesn t discuss budget? That s because they re only fear mongering and nothing else Shame on them!MEALS ON WHEELS CAME OUT WITH A STATEMENT TO CLEAR THINGS UP: The nationwide Meals on Wheels network, comprised of 5,000, local, community-based programs, receives 35% of its total funding for the provision of congregate and home-delivered meals from the federal government through the Older Americans Act, administered by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Community Living. Other federal funding sources that support Meals on Wheels program operations may include the Community Development Block Grant, Community Services Block Grant or the Social Services Block Grant. In addition, programs rely on contributions from state or local governments, private donations and other resources to cover the rest, demonstrating one of the best examples of a successful public-private partnership. Meals on Wheels America, the largest and oldest national organization representing senior nutrition programs across the country, receives only 3% of its funding from the government, specifically to run the National Research Center on Nutrition and Aging. | 0 | [
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FMD479 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: My neck is killing me. Isn’t yours? My shoulder hurts, too. Not always the same one, but always in the morning. Herniated disks, spinal stenosis, bone spurs: It’s a mess in there. As for the shoulders, one gave out with a horrible popping noise in a yoga class a few years ago the cause of the other’s decay remains a (very dull) mystery. These were the afflictions that sent me pillow shopping last week, and for which, on one particularly frigid evening, Saroya a sales associate at Hastens, the Swedish mattress company, prescribed what she called “a pillow cocktail. †Ms. whose nickname is Soy, was not referring to the handful of Advil washed down with a Bud that would be my palliative. It’s the relationship, she said, between my head, my bed and my pillow. I had come to Hastens first because it is the purveyor of the $100, 000 mattress, an artisanal object made from wool, horsetail hair, cotton and mohair. (Like condo sales topping $100 million, this number sets a benchmark for a certain kind of lunatic luxury purchase.) And I knew I would find a pillow there to elevate the whole category. For years, the standard pillow for those with neck issues has been a crudely formed foam number, which is about as sexy as the cervical collar that is its daytime mate. Orthopedic bedding is not a style you want to cleave to, at least not for any length of time. You can’t mask an orthopedic pillow in a print from John Robshaw, and its contours throw the armada of the “dressed bed†into disarray. Hastens Anatomical Pillow is an unlovely name for a pretty object. At least, it comes with a case made from the company’s signature check. It is made of down and feathers, and shaped like a padded O, or a Leigh Bowery headdress (yes, I did stuff my head into it later). Inside the O is a pocket into which you slip a neck bolster, made from the same proportion — 15 to 85 percent — of down to feathers. For side or back sleepers like me, the of the pillow is designed to fit under your neck and support its natural curve. Ms. had me unwrap myself from all my layers so she could see my neck, and led me gently to what she said was Hastens’s best seller, the 2000T ($38, 000). “This is a bed,†she said, “that’s really great for side sleepers. †Tucking the pillow under my head, she traced my spine from to my hairline with her fingers to make sure it was straight. My shoulders unscrunched, my eyelids fluttered. Reader, I went home with a $330 pillow. • These are boom times for the luxury bedding business. Hastens has been expanding exponentially, having opened two new stores in Manhattan last year now there are four locations in the city where you can buy a mattress that costs more than your car, and another Hastens store is to open in two weeks in Greenwich, Conn. But entire fortunes are being made in pillows, too. Consider the success of the My Pillow founder, Michael J. Lindell, a former cocaine addict and inventor whose pillows, which sell for about $50, brought in more than $100 million in sales in 2012, according to The Star Tribune of Minneapolis. No doubt you’ve seen his infomercial. He, too, had neck issues. He, like you, would “ all night long like a guppy,†as he puts it, until he developed his patented pillow filler, a stew of interlocking foam chunks.’ â€There are a few data sets to roughly gauge the size of the market for a product that would address the nexus. In 2012, according to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, and made available by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons last week, 14 percent of adult Americans said they had neck pain within a period in 2010, another N. C. H. S. survey noted that there were more than 10 million visits to doctors’ offices for complaints related to neck pain.†’As it turns out, said Dr. Robert Gotlin, director of orthopedic and sports rehabilitation at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, we are designed for failure. “The fact is, from age 25 on, this process of failure begins,†he continued cheerfully. “The analogy is this: You go to a bowling alley and you hold a bowling ball over your head, and what happens is your arms gets tired. Basically, your head is that ball. And over time, two things happen: your muscles get sore and your disks wear out. Or you get arthritis. We’re all going to wind up with at least one of these conditions at the same time we are still holding up this object. I, like you, would love to go to bed and wake up without feeling any pain. †As far as pillows are concerned, he said: “The real answer is, there is no answer. Foam or any of these pillows with the divots, the cutout supports, these are marketing items that have their own research attached that supports their claims. The best advice is to just pick one that feels good. The pillow should basically be one that keeps your head over your shoulders. Rather than spend all this money on the fancy things, see what’s comfortable. That could be the cheapest one. †• At the Clean Bedroom in Brooklyn Heights, which sells organic bedding (natural latex and cotton sheets, for example, in beige tones) and bedroom furniture like dressers made from sustainable maple from the parlor floor of a brownstone building, Luis Camejo was explaining the niceties of pillows. He was trying to locate a one for me. Grains are good for support, he said, and because millet is a smaller grain than buckwheat, it’s less noisy — less crunchy — if you move around when you sleep. But he was sold out of the millet, and so were his company’s six other stores. It turned out that the seamstress at Sachi Organics, which makes the pillows, had a pinched nerve and was a week behind on their orders. Now that’s kind of ironic. “I’m an English major,†Mr. Camejo said. “So I’m not sure of the correct meaning of irony. †How does an English major get into the bedding business? “Craigslist,†he said, as he rang up a buckwheat pillow ($80) and a shredded organic rubber contour pillow covered in beige wool ($199). • on Mercer Street, directly opposite Andre Balazs’s solemn, Jean glass castle, is a Greek organic bedding store that sells mattresses made from layers of coconut fibers, seaweed, cotton, wool and natural rubber. You could probably eat them, if times were tough. The main precept here is a sort of D. I. Y. bed: mattresses and pillows are made from zippered pockets stuffed with plant materials you can add to or remove. I was put to bed with slippers, a glass of orange juice and a hand towel that Alisha Hylton, director of sales for North America, spread over the Sithon VIII pillow (names here are derived from Greek mythology). makes 12 kinds of pillows in various architectural styles and fillings, and a computer program on an iPad helps you figure out the one for you. Ms. Hylton said she used to measure her customers’ necks and shoulder spans with a ruler until a small child broke it now she just eyeballs them. The Sithon VIII ($316) had a bolster and a central pouch filled with seaweed, rubber and eucalyptus leaves. It comes with a bottle of eucalyptus oil and squares of linen you dollop with oil, then stick in that central pouch. I wasn’t eager to sleep in a fog of eucalyptus — it was too medical an aroma for bed — so Ms. Hylton added another, plainer model, the Sithon I ($117). None of the bedding is returnable, but in Europe you can try ’s beds and pillows free, said Mike Efmorfidis, the company’s chief executive officer, at a stay at one of their hotels. “I can’t offer you that here,†he said. “But you can sign up to sleep in the suite downstairs. Though not right now, because it’s occupied. †Someone is sleeping under us right now? “Ah, he’s up now, he just passed by,†Mr. Efmorfidis said. Siestas in the suite, Ms. Hylton added, come complete with pillows and fresh linens. Customers typically choose or sessions, she said. It is perhaps a sign of the times that you can now find a bed by the hour, and just sleep in it. | 1 | [
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FMD480 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Along a stretch of highway in suburban Bayamon, Puerto Rico, construction workers tried desperately to make progress repairing a 100-foot-long sinkhole before the clouds rolled in. Previous rains had suspended work, as workers watched earth fall back into the hole. It has not wanted to stop raining since Hurricane Maria, said Carlos Rivera, a 26-year-old contract worker at the site last month. Cars backed up for miles along Puerto Rico Highway 2 on either side of the colossal construction site, which swallowed four of five lanes. The 20-foot crater was among thousands of sites damaged by a storm that exposed an already fragile infrastructure in Puerto Rico, decimating water, power and roadways all at once. Fixing just this one sinkhole required maneuvering a set of vexing logistical and financial hurdles that reveal why rebuilding this isolated island will take so much more time and work than in any storm-ravaged region of the mainland United States. The hole is only one of 3,500 reported incidents of hurricane damage to Puerto Rico-owned roadways, with repair costs estimated at $250 million. A U.S. territory, Puerto Rico was already in trouble when Maria hit on Sept. 20 as the strongest storm to strike the island in nine decades. Its economy had been in recession for a decade, pushing the island into bankruptcy to restructure about $120 billion in bond and pension debt. The task of rebuilding is made that much harder by the challenges and expense of bringing supplies and equipment to an island, which will depend heavily on U.S. aid and likely struggle to finance its expected share of the rebuilding. The storm cut all power and cell service, felled trees, destroyed 230,000 homes and damaged another 400,000. One of the casualties was this stretch of Highway 2, the vital 143-mile artery between San Juan and Ponce. Running west from San Juan before looping south, the road transports thousands of people a day between the San Juan suburbs and the island s bustling capital. Hurricane Maria s rains flooded the pipes under Highway 2 until one burst. Water gushed out of the old pipe deep below the roadway, scouring out a hole into which the ground eventually collapsed. Officials could not ignore the sinkhole, which squeezed eastbound traffic into a single westbound lane and detoured westbound traffic. Tempers began to fray as residents endured a one-mile drive for nearly an hour. The problem fell to Puerto Rico Transportation and Public Works Secretary Carlos Contreras Aponte. His department oversees the island s Highway and Transportation Authority (PRHTA), which manages a third of Puerto Rico s 9,300 miles of roadway. The most pressing problem facing Contreras was logistics: how to rebuild a road with no power, limited trucks, no electrical light, and no cell phones. As of this week, less than half the island s power had been restored, according to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Puerto Rico s antiquated electric grid was decimated by the storm and now needs a complete rebuild. Electricity is required to run the machinery used for extracting rock and other raw materials to produce asphalt. Since the storm, contractors have had to bring in diesel-powered generators to power the machinery, a cumbersome and expensive task, Contreras said. That s something that s happening in every industry here, creating a shortage of generators, Contreras said. Another scarce commodity: trucks. With much of the population cut off from power and communication, the island was forced to divert hundreds of trucks and drivers to help bring supplies to needy citizens. That left few vehicles behind to transport the equipment and materials needed to fix infrastructure, including Highway 2 s sinkhole. The truck drivers, many have been hired by other companies, the secretary said. Among those competing for trucks: Puerto Rico s own water and sewer authority, known as PRASA. PRASA president Eli Diaz-Atienza told Reuters in an interview in October that his agency had just 125 trucks to service the island s 3.4 million residents. He has requested trucks from FEMA, tapped the U.S. Army National Guard for vehicles, and contracted with private sector firms to repurpose vehicles such as milk trucks. We ll never have enough trucks, Diaz said. Replacements for damaged traffic signals at all of Puerto Rico s 1,200 intersections must be flown to the island from the states, a more expensive and complicated process than trucking them. We don t have those supplies here in Puerto Rico because we never had to repair the equipment at all of the intersections at once, Contreras said. Through it all, communications remain a problem. With cell service iffy, the roads department has resorted to using runners who travel hours to areas of the island without phone service to relay reports of damage. The travel time and word-of-mouth communication has led to incorrect, incomplete or confusing information and further delays, Contreras said. Sometimes we get a description of a problem, and then when we send the technical people, it s a completely different story, he explained. One problem this particular sinkhole managed to avoid was money. Because it lay on a major thoroughfare, Contreras decided to prioritize it, funding repairs with an expected $1 million of the $42.5 million in emergency funds from the Federal Highway Administration. Puerto Rico officials could not be reached for comment on the final costs and time required to repair the roadway. But a Reuters witness who drove down Highway 2 this week said the area had been paved over and traffic was moving easily. The triage process that pits some rebuilding projects over others reflects the broader financial ruin in Puerto Rico. Initial U.S. aid packages won t be nearly enough, so agencies like PRHTA | 1 | [
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FMD481 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: One of Russia’s top diplomats said on Monday that government ministries in the United States and Russia should restore direct communications channels with each other as part of a first step to rebuild bilateral ties. U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have both said they would like to try to mend U.S.-Russia relations that slid to a post-Cold War low after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, told the Moscow-based Security Index Journal in an interview published on Monday that restoring inter-ministerial and inter-agency ties between the two countries was now essential. “A reset in contacts between ministries and agencies in one form or another has long been needed,†said Ryabkov, saying contacts had been frozen since 2014. Ryabkov, in the same interview, said a Russian proposal to discuss cyber security issues at an inter-agency level with the United States was still on the table. U.S. intelligence agencies accused Moscow of sponsoring computer hackers to try to influence last year’s U.S. election in Trump’s favor, allegations Russia denies. Ryabkov said Moscow had many questions on cyber security for U.S. officials, citing hacker attacks on Russian web sites. He also dismissed the idea of Moscow agreeing to make nuclear arms cuts in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump, in a newspaper interview last month, floated the possibility that U.S. sanctions on Russia imposed over Crimea could be lifted as part of a deal involving nuclear cuts. Ryabkov said the idea was “a non-starter.†“We don’t discuss the sanctions and won’t discuss them,†said Ryabkov. | 1 | [
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FMD482 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind! raved Ernesto Che Guevara in 1961. Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination. We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies very home, to his places of work and recreation. The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we ll destroy him! We must keep our hatred against them (the U.S.) alive and fan it to paroxysms! -Che Guevara, head of Cuba s Foreign Liberation Department, Nov. 17, 1962We have a president who won t tie Islamic terrorists to Islam, has cut a one-sided deal with Iran, as they continue to chant death to America, and has made an open alliance with a communist country who has a long history of hating America. The same country Obama is fighting to normalize relations with, would have committed an unspeakable act of terrorism against us, had our FBI not thwarted their plans. Why the rush to embrace so many nations and leaders who have a long history of wanting to harm us Barry? On the morning of November 17th, 1962, FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. took on all the trappings of a military command post, according to historian William Breuer. The previous night an intelligence puzzle had finally come together. The resulting picture staggered the FBI men. And these had served at their posts during WWII and the height of the Cold War. They d seen plenty. Now they had mere days to foil a crime against their nation to rival Hideki Tojo s.The agents and officers were haggard and red-eyed but seriously wired. Like hawks on a perch they d been watching the plot unfold, sweating bullets the whole time. It was nearing time to swoop down on Fidel Castro and Che Guevara s agents, busy with a terror plot that would have made ISIS drool decades later.Alan Belmont was second to J Edgar Hoover at the time. Raymond Wannall headed the Bureau s Intelligence Division. That nerve-jangling morning both were in Belmont s office just down the hall from Hoover s. Both were burning up the telephone lines to their agents in New York. On one phone they had Special Agent John Malone who ran the New York field office. On other lines they talked with several carloads of FBI agents slinking around Manhattan. These were keeping a touch-and-go, but more or less constant, surveillance on the ringleaders of the Cuban terror plot.Castro s agents had targeted Macy s, Gimbels, Bloomingdales, and Manhattan s Grand Central Station with a dozen incendiary devices and 500 kilos of TNT. The holocaust was set for detonation the following week, on the day after Thanksgiving.A little perspective: For their March 2004 Madrid subway blasts, all 10 of them, that killed and maimed almost 2,000 people, al-Qaeda used a grand total of 100 kilos of TNT. Castro and Che s agents planned to set off five times that explosive power in the three biggest department stores on earth, all packed to suffocation and pulsing with holiday cheer on the year s biggest shopping day. Macy s get s 50,000 shoppers that one day. Thousands of New Yorkers, including women and children actually, given the date and targets, probably mostly women and children were to be incinerated and entombed. ( We greeted each other as old friends, gushed Jimmy Carter when visiting Fidel Castro in 2002.)At the time, the FBI relied heavily on HUMINT (Human Intelligence.) So they d expertly penetrated the plot. One by one the ringleaders were ambushed. The first was named Roberto Santiesteban and he was nabbed while walking down Riverside Drive. As the agents closed in, Santiesteban saw them and took off! And as he ran, Santiesteban was jamming paper in his mouth and chewing furiously.But six FBI agents were after him, all fleet of foot themselves. Finally they closed the ring and triangulated the suspect. Santiesteban fell, raging and cursing, flailing his arms and jabbing his elbows like a maniac. They grabbed his arm and bent it behind his back just as he was reaching for his pistol.While this group got their man, another FBI squad arrested a couple named Elsa Montero and Jose Gomez-Abad as they left their apartment on West 71st Street. The FBI speculated that as many as 30 others might have been in on the plot, but these were the head honchos. Had those detonators gone off, 9/11 might be remembered as the SECOND deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.Some of these plotters belonged to the New York Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an outfit that became MUCH better known a year later on that very week. Incidentally, at the time of the Manhattan terror plot, the Fair Play For Cuba Committee also included among its members, CBS correspondent Robert Taber (an early version of Dan Rather, who conducted Castro s first network television soft-soaping on Aug. 30, 1957), along with The Nation magazine co-owner Alan Sagner. In 1996 President Clinton appointed Alan Sagner head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.Terror-plotters Roberto Santiesteban, Elsa Montero and Jose Gomez-Abad belonged to the Castro-Cuban Mission to the U.N. and escaped prosecution by indignantly claiming diplomatic immunity. Via: TownhallIt s hard to imagine any American would ever consider Che Guevara to be a hero And then again, maybe it s not so hard to imagine:Maria Isabel is the campaign volunteer who hung this Che Guevara poster in the Obama campaign office in Houston, TX. She s no low-level volunteer either. She is a campaign precinct captain and the co-chair of the Houston Obama Leadership Team. | 0 | [
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FMD483 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The “Shadow Brokers,†the group that pilfered and published the stolen National Security Agency hacking tools that turned the WannaCry ransomware virus into a global crisis, are threatening to sell more stolen cyber weapons in June. [AFP describes the latest communique from the Shadow Brokers as a “taunting online message in broken English,†which announced the group would “take payments beginning in June for monthly releases of computer hacks and vulnerability exploits. †The Shadow Brokers always take pains to sound like cartoon versions of Russian spies in their messages. This particular missive includes Moose and Squirrel verbiage such as, “Is being like wine of month club. Each month peoples can be paying membership fee, then getting members only data dump each month. What members doing with data after is up to members. †The Shadow Brokers spend much of their latest message taunting a particular adversary, another hacking team linked to the NSA called The Equation Group. The Shadow Brokers insist their goal in stealing and selling these NSA hacking tools was to embarrass The Equation Group. As the hackers put it, quoting an infamous Internet meme based on an old videogame, “All your bases are belong to us. †“TheShadowBrokers is not being interested in bug bounties, selling to cyber thugs, or giving to greedy corporate empires. TheShadowBrokers is taking pride in picking adversary equal to or better than selves, a worthy opponent. Is always being about theshadowbrokers vs theequationgroup,†the message declares. The Shadow Brokers jeer at various governments and “bullshit security companies†that did not bother to place bids when they attempted to sell the stolen hacking tools in an online auction. The auction was canceled when no one submitted a bid equal to the high price the thieves demanded. The Shadow Brokers portray themselves as insulted by the lack of bids, releasing the EternalBlue worm tools that were later incorporated into the WannaCry ransomware virus to prove their claims of holding “75% of U. S. cyber arsenal†are serious. Speaking of WannaCry, the Shadow Brokers say they were “eating popcorn†and watching the spread of the virus with great amusement. They also enjoyed the firing of FBI Director James Comey, toward whom they seem to harbor great animosity. The title of their message, in fact, is “OH LORDY! Comey Wanna Cry Edition. †The hackers imply WannaCry might have been a operation designed to provoke hostilities between the United States and North Korea, which has been linked to an early version of the ransomware code. “Is being very strange behavior for crimeware? Killswitch? Crimeware is caring about target country?†they write, referring to the code discovered by a cybersecurity researcher that greatly impeded the spread of WannaCry over the weekend. The communique is seasoned with contempt for Microsoft, for allowing the vulnerabilities exploited by viruses like WannaCry to exist unpatched for so long, and for users who waited too long to install the patches that would have inoculated them against WannaCry. Conversely, the Shadow Brokers fault the NSA and its Equation Group for waiting so long to tell Microsoft the vulnerabilities existed. Among the new wares (or “warez†to use the preferred hacker spelling) the Shadow Brokers claim they might soon put on sale are exploits that target vulnerabilities in Windows 10 and tools to hack web browsers, routers, and mobile devices. Also, they imply they are in possession of “compromised network data†from the Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean nuclear and missile programs. Since the Shadow Brokers are widely suspected of connections to the Russian government (that is why they mockingly use the broken Russian accent when they write) the threats to sell that nuclear and missile data might be disingenuous. A final extortion threat is leveled at the end of the message: if the rightful owners of the data and software stolen by the Shadow Brokers pay them an appropriate sum in Bitcoin, the group will “go dark permanently†because it will have “no more financial incentives†to continue its risky operations. notes that they probably have a very large sum in mind, as the price they demanded at auction for the NSA software was about $580 million in Bitcoin. It is increasingly clear that the NSA informed Microsoft of the Windows software vulnerabilities it had long kept secret when it realized its powerful hacking tools had been stolen and exposed to the world. This will naturally lead to mounting criticism that neither Microsoft nor the NSA informed the general public about the danger that a virus like WannaCry could unleash. Microsoft has been castigated for making a patch to the vulnerability in later versions of Windows available a month ago, without impressing upon users the urgency of downloading and installing that patch immediately. The older, officially obsolete Windows XP, which is still running on a large number of older computers around the world, was not patched until after the scale of the WannaCry infection became clear. The new threat from the Shadow Brokers could provoke a new crisis at the offices of Microsoft and the National Security Agency: should they credit the Shadow Brokers’ claims and come clean about vulnerabilities that might be exposed by the “dump of the month†program when it begins in June? If they don’t, and another global online pandemic is unleashed, the outrage directed their way will be deafening. Likewise, Microsoft and other tech firms will be furious at the governments of the United States and other countries if intelligence agencies are still hoarding exploits for their own purposes and putting computer users at risk. The Shadow Brokers could be bluffing, but after the astounding damage inflicted by WannaCry last weekend, tech executives and government officials may be reluctant to call their bluff. | 1 | [
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FMD484 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The stock market does better when you have a Democratic president in the White House.
contextual information: Does the stock market boom under Democratic presidents? Hillary Clinton said so during a town hall in Nashua, N.H., on July 28, 2015. "You know the evidence is pretty clear that under Democratic presidents, going a ways back, people do better," Clinton said at around 5:30 in this video. "And not only working people, middle-class people. Even the stock market does better when you have a Democratic president in the White House." We wondered: Is it true that the stock market performs better under a Democratic president? We took a closer look.
Scrutinizing the stock ticker, there have been a couple of studies addressing this question, and they all agree: For whatever reason, going back more than a century, the stock market has done better under Democratic presidents than Republican presidents. A 2012 report by CMC Markets, an international financial firm, found that since 1900, the United States stock markets have posted an average annual return of 15.31 percent under Democratic presidents, compared to just 5.43 percent under Republicans. Another study from 2012 by Adviser Perspectives newsletter, using somewhat different methodology, found that since 1900, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 8.7 percent annually under a Democratic president, compared to 5.7 percent under Republicans. Calculations by The Economist found that the Barclays U.S. equity index gained a cumulative 300 percent under Democratic presidents between 1929 and 2011, compared to about zero under Republican presidents.
To bring the data up to date, we checked in with Sam Stovall, the chief investment strategist at S&P Equity Research in New York. He had previously found a significant Democratic advantage in stock market gains through 2012. From 1901 through July 31, 2015, Stovall found that the stock market gained 8.7 percent under Democratic presidents, compared to 5.3 percent under Republican presidents. The same pattern held in Stovall's data since the end of World War II; in fact, it was even more pronounced. Since 1945, the markets gained 11.2 percent under Democratic presidents and 6.3 percent under Republican presidents.
And it wasn't just the stock market that showed better performance under Democratic presidents, according to a July 2014 paper by Princeton University economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson. They found a performance gap between the parties that was startlingly large over a wide variety of economic metrics. The U.S. economy not only grows faster, according to real GDP and other measures, during Democratic versus Republican presidencies, but it also produces more jobs, lowers the unemployment rate, generates higher corporate profits and investment, and achieves higher stock market returns, Blinder and Watson wrote. Indeed, it outperforms under almost all standard macroeconomic metrics.
What does this mean? Multiple studies show that Clinton's claim is numerically correct. But what, if anything, can we conclude from it? Experts said it's best not to go overboard in drawing conclusions about White House control and stock market performance. Here are some of the reasons why. A lot of this stems from luck and timing. Republicans are burdened by having Herbert Hoover on their presidential roster. The stock market decline was so quick and deep under Hoover that it continues to hinder the party's stock market performance all these decades later. Meanwhile, starting at such a low point was a huge help to his Democratic successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. In fact, if you remove Hoover from the GOP column, the average monthly return for Republicans improves significantly, from a 0.38 percent average monthly return to a 0.61 percent monthly return. The Hoover-free GOP number is within striking distance of the Democratic mark of 0.73 percent, said Lawrence J. White, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. White doesn't argue that it's fairest to remove Hoover from the GOP's calculation. Rather, he said, it's a reminder that relatively small changes due at least in part to unlucky timing can have big effects on the end result.
Partisan labels are only somewhat helpful. What matters is the relationship of policy to the stock market, not partisan labels, said Dan Mitchell, an economist with the libertarian Cato Institute. Economic policy under Bill Clinton was far more market-oriented than it was under either Bush or Nixon. A good stock market is harder to define than one might think. For instance, a healthy year-over-year increase in the stock market may sound good, but if it comes with high volatility throughout the year, that can be a lot less pleasant for investors, said Tom Arnold, a professor of finance at the University of Richmond Robins School of Business. Meanwhile, down markets are buying opportunities, and up markets are selling opportunities for the purpose of cashing in on profits, possibly from securities purchased in a down market, Arnold said. Better performance in one market is usually at the cost of another market.
Market results don't align neatly with presidential terms. The stock market makes an anticipatory assessment of a president and his policies shortly after his election—or even before the election, White said. So the market's anticipation of what an incoming president will do occurs during the last few months of the incumbent's presidency. He noted that this factor was even stronger prior to 1936, when the new president was inaugurated on March 4, leaving four months of stock market anticipation in the previous president's column.
A president is only one factor in determining stock market performance. Perhaps most importantly, experts urge caution in ascribing too much credit to a president for how the stock market performs during his watch. Often—including now, during a period of strong stock market gains—Congress is held by the opposing party. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve, which plays a crucial role in the economy by directing the nation's monetary policy, operates independently once appointments are made by the president and confirmed by Congress. Additionally, a host of other factors that a president can't control, including technological advances and international economic trends, also play a role.
In their paper, Blinder and Watson focus on two factors as most important in determining economic performance. One is the presence or absence of an energy price shock—something that, unfortunately for the GOP, hit during the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush, compared to just once under a Democrat, Jimmy Carter. The other factor they pointed to is what economists call total factor productivity, defined as the portion of economic output not explained by the amount of inputs used in production. Think of it as the economy's special sauce, or its extra bang for the buck. Although it's unclear why, Democratic presidents have benefited from higher total factor productivity, most clearly during the technology boom under Bill Clinton, which produced significant productivity gains.
Hillary Clinton's campaign emphasized to PolitiFact that she didn't say that the president is the only factor that influences stock market results. Still, our experts agreed that while the numbers to back up her claim are clear, the meaning and significance of those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. "I wouldn't place much weight on it, one way or the other," White said.
Our ruling: Clinton said that the stock market does better when you have a Democratic president in the White House. The numbers back her up, but it's worth noting that luck, timing, and several other factors in the broader economy also play a role in determining stock market performance. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD485 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: BRASÃLIA — Brazil’s suspended president, Dilma Rousseff, took the stand on Monday at her impeachment trial in the Senate, delivering a defense to prevent her final removal from office. “Don’t expect from me the obliging silence of cowards,†Ms. Rousseff, 68, said in a withering attack on her opponents at the start of her testimony. She argued that she was innocent of the charges against her — that she manipulated the federal budget to mask the extent of Brazil’s economic problems — and described herself as the victim of a conspiracy to oust her. Reflecting the rising sense of divisiveness in the country, protests against Ms. Rousseff’s ouster emerged in various cities as she took the stand. Demonstrators shut down parts of Avenida Paulista, one of São Paulo’s main thoroughfares, as Ms. Rousseff was grilled by senators on Monday night. The vote on whether to convict Ms. Rousseff, who was suspended from office in May, is expected as early as Tuesday or Wednesday. Her opponents need of the Senate, or 54 votes, to convict her. If she loses the vote, as is widely expected, Michel Temer, the interim president and former vice president, will be president until the end of the current term in 2018. Ms. Rousseff compared her plight to those of other Brazilian presidents hounded by their opponents, including João Goulart, a leftist toppled in a military coup in 1964 that opened the way for a dictatorship. In her testimony, she also compared the impeachment effort to the suffering she endured in her youth, when agents from the dictatorship arrested her for her involvement in an urban guerrilla group. She was repeatedly tortured while she was imprisoned in the early 1970s. Ms. Rousseff said the impeachment proceedings amounted to a new type of coup, evoking the rupturing of Brazilian democracy in the 1960s. Responding to that assertion, Senator Ana Amélia Lemos, an opponent of Ms. Rousseff’s, expressed respect for the leader’s personal history. But Ms. Lemos also insisted that Ms. Rousseff had broken the law by manipulating the budget to conceal mounting economic problems. “We’re not here to judge your biography, but rather the actions practiced in your government,†Ms. Lemos said. Ms. Rousseff contended that she had done nothing illegal. “If the political contract with the people is broken, then any contract can be broken,†Ms. Rousseff said, arguing that her ouster would heighten the risks of investing in a country where presidents can be toppled with ease. Of the four Brazilian presidents elected to office since democracy was reestablished in the 1980s, she is the second to face impeachment. In 1992, Fernando Collor de Mello resigned before the Senate could convict him on corruption charges. Mr. Collor de Mello resurrected his political career and is among the senators trying Ms. Rousseff, despite being under investigation over claims of pocketing huge bribes in the graft scandal around the national oil company, Petrobras. Ms. Rousseff alluded to the fact that she remains rare among major Brazilian political figures: She has not been accused of illegally enriching herself, in contrast to a broad array of legislators seeking her ouster. “This process,†she said, “has been marked from start to finish by a blatant misappropriation of power. †| 1 | [
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FMD486 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Has California declared that it will provide COVID-19 stimulus payments to undocumented residents while also terminating first responders? Claim summaries: A meme linked two separate events together to foment political controversy.
contextual information: Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In late May 2020, social media users shared a meme that contained a misleading claim about the state of California. The meme said the state had announced it would give undocumented residents a stimulus payment on the same day it said it would lay off first responders due to diminished state funds resulting from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, implying the two events are causally linked. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on April 15, 2020, acknowledged undocumented residents paid $2.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2019. He then announced the state would draw up a total of $125 million sourced from charitable donations and taxpayer funds to provide $500 stimulus payments to those residents. That was because they didn't qualify to receive federal stimulus checks under the CARES Act, a relief package meant to blunt the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. acknowledged CARES Act This announcement was unrelated to another statement Newsom made more than a month later. In the latter, he urged the federal government to provide financial assistance to states and local governments struggling with economic shortfalls to their operating budgets due to forced business closures during the pandemic. In an interview on CNN on May 21, Newsom stated that without federal help, cities and counties may be forced to lay off first responders. interview "The next time they want to salute our heroes, our first responders, our police officers and firefighters, consider the fact that they are the first ones to be laid off by cities and counties," Newsom said when asked by CNN host Jake Tapper what would happen if the federal government failed to bail out states and local governments. "The folks who are out there, the true heroes of this pandemic, are health care workers and nurses. Those county health systems have been ravaged, their budgets have been devastated and depleted, the budget accounts depleted since this pandemic." Budgets that deal with first responders like police, firefighters, and paramedics are generally administered by local governments, meaning it would be cities and counties in California, not the state itself, that would have discretion over whether or when to cut those services. Furthermore, Newsom didn't "announce" such layoffs would take place; he simply suggested cuts may occur in the absence of intervention from the federal government to financially shore up local governments. As of late May, California was facing a $54 billion budget shortfall resulting from economic fallout of stay-at-home orders that forced shuttering of most commerce beginning in mid-March, in an effort to slow the spread of the COVID-19 disease. The state one year earlier had a surplus of $21 billion. $54 billion In sum, Newsom didn't "announce" layoffs for first responders but instead projected that layoffs at the local level were a looming possibility. He also didn't make the statement on the same day that he announced California would commit $125 million ($75 million of which would come from taxpayers) to give undocumented state residents $500 stimulus payments. The two events are unrelated, although the meme attempted to link them causally. We therefore rate this claim Lightman, David."Fact Check: Gavin Newsom Warns of Layoffs for Police, Firefighters. Is He Exaggerating?"
Sacramento Bee.21 May 2020. CNN."Newsom Warns of Police, Fire Layoffs in California."
21 May 2020. Associated Press."California Announces $125 Million Fund for Undocumented Immigrants Impacted by Coronavirus."
15 April 2020. Associated Press."California Faces a Staggering $54 Billion Budget Deficit Due to Economic Devastation from Coronavirus."
7 May 2020. | 0 | [
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FMD487 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Emilie Hoffer is Mika Brzezinski s daughter! She s on Instagram so when you check out her photos there, you ll find Emilie sporting a Make America Great Again Trump hat! Haha! Instagram comments were supportive of the MAGA hat: Looking good in the #MAGA hat. Mom might not be too happy though.. Too bad! love that hat! ur mom not so much. at 1east she did one thing right in life and raised you Right. OUCH Hour one of the MSNBC morning show began typically enough with Mika and Joe. The assembled gang could barely contain their glee at the prospect of damning testimony from James Comey. That all set the stage for a typical Mika Brzezinski tirade that was honestly one of the most disgusting assaults on President Trump yet. It s unhinged hate!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZoUCHs22AwIN CASE YOU DIDN T KNOW, THERE S NO LOVE LOST BETWEEN TRUMP AND MIKA CHECK OUT THE LATEST RANT FROM EMILIE S MOTHER: I think Trump is such a narcissist, it s possible he is mentally ill in a way and this is on the table, I said it months ago and now everyone is starting to say it like it s new, and it s ok to say. He s not well, she said. At the very least, he s not well. And he s so narcissistic he does not believe the rules apply to him, and that s where the ignorance label may apply because this is a man who says he can grab women anywhere because he s famous. Then something very curious happened.Scarborough looked off camera and can be heard saying, What s that? Wow, Then Willie Geist showed him something and the two started laughing. Then a clearly not listening Scarborough, banged the table. Stop right there, he laughed I need an eject button. He posted it? Scarborough appeared to ask someone else?Brzezinski finally realized that nobody was listening to her and demanded an explanation. Nothing I have said is crazy, she said. We ll talk about it in the break, said Scarborough barely able to get it out through his own laugher.The show soon went to break. When it returned Scarborough joked about keeping it in the guard rails. Brzezinski appeared to offer an explanation of her actions. I am keeping it in the guard rails. Everything I ve said you all have thought and you know and you ve said in your own way. You re going to talk to me about a filter? she snapped at Scarborough. Yes, he said. | 0 | [
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FMD488 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: With mainstream media and establishment politicians stacked against him from the moment he announced his run for the presidency, Donald J. Trump has been in an ongoing pitched battle to communicate his plans and his eventual successes to Americans. Through public rallies and social media, he has managed to bypass the traditional information gatekeepers and has spoken directly to the people.Yet, Americans are subjected to a relentless drumbeat from the Democratic Party, amplified by virtually the entire establishment press, that Trump is not only undisciplined, unfit for office and possibly racist, but that embarrassingly little has been accomplished by the Trump administration.But we Deplorables know better When Dana Kamide made this pro-Trump video last year, it was an instant hit. The hilarious video reminded Americans of why we re so blessed to have President Trump as our President. To date, the It s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year viral video has been seen over 5.6 million times. This Christmas, let s all count our blessings and remember to be thankful for the bullet we dodged in 2016. Enjoy WND And while he has befuddled and disappointed some with major promises such as Obamacare repeal and a border wall unfulfilled or put on the backburner the stunning reality is this: Donald Trump has amassed a long and remarkable list of actions and accomplishments that will surprise average Americans, even those who support the president and consider themselves well-informed politically.Below, is an accounting of the truly significant achievements of the first eight months of the Trump presidency. The accomplishments are all the more noteworthy as they have been carried out in an environment of unrelenting negativity on the part of not only the Democrats and almost the entire news media, but the Beltway establishment itself, the entire donor class, the Deep State, and even many Republicans wedded to the D.C. swamp. DECEMBERRegulatory reform: President Trump announced Dec. 14 his administration has far exceeded its promise to eliminate regulations at a 2:1 ratio and impose no lifetime net regulatory costs. In total, agencies issued 67 deregulatory actions while imposing only three new regulatory actions, a ratio of 22:1. Federal agencies also achieved $8.1 billion in lifetime net regulatory cost savings, the equivalent of $570 million per year. Jobs: Some 228,000 new jobs were created in November, highlighting the strongest U.S. labor market since the turn of the century. The government also reported Dec. 8 that unemployment was unchanged at 4.1 percent, but that s still nearly a 17-year low. Military: The Trump administration asked a federal court Dec. 7 for an emergency stay to delay a court order to begin opening the military to transgender recruits by Jan. 1. Israel: While the previous three U.S. presidents promised during their election campaigns to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, President Trump on Dec. 6 became the first to follow through. In his official order, Trump also ordered the U.S. Embassy to be moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded: President Donald Trump, thank you for today s historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital. The Jewish people and the Jewish state will be forever grateful. Immigration: The Department of Homeland Security released figures Dec. 4 showing Trump is delivering on his pledge to more strictly control immigration and deter would-be border-crossers. Border Patrol arrests dropped to a 45-year low in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, down 25 percent from a year earlier. ICE said the number of people apprehended away from the border jumped 25 percent this fiscal year. The increase is 37 percent after Trump s inauguration compared to the same period the year before. States rights: President Trump signed two executive orders Dec. 4 that gave back about 2 million acres of land to the state of Utah by modifying executive orders by President Obama. Arguing the Antiquities Act requires that any reservation of land as part of a monument be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects of historic or scientific interest to be protected, Trump reduced the federal government s control of the Bear s Ear National Monument to just 201,876 acres, pointing out that the important objects of scientific or historic interest described described in Obama s proclamation are protected under existing laws and agency management designations. He also reduced the Grand Staircase National Monument in Utah from nearly 1.9 million acres to about 1 million. Immigration: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced Dec. 3 the Trump administration is withdrawing from the Global Compact on Migration, arguing the pact would undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders. Tillerson made the announcement just before the opening of a global conference on migration in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Tax reform: Propelled by the engagement of President Trump, the Senate on Dec. 1 passed the biggest rewrite of the nation s tax system since 1986, reducing rates for businesses and individuals. The Republican-led House passed a similar bill in November. The two chambers of Congress will negotiate a reconciliation of the two bills that they expect to put on the president s desk before the end of the year. Health care: The Senate tax-reform bill passed Dec. 1 eliminates Obamacare s individual mandate, the linchpin of Obama s government-controlled health-care system, which penalizes taxpayers for choosing not to buy health insurance.NOVEMBERStocks: The Dow Jones industrial average surged more than 331 points Nov. 30 to close above 24,000 for the first time in history. Stocks were buoyed by the possibility of the Senate passing the Republican tax-reform bill championed by President Trump. Mining: Mining increased 28.6 percent in the second quarter and was the leading contributor to growth for the nation and in the three fastest-growing states of North Dakota, Wyoming, and Texas, according to the Commerce Department s Bureau of Economic Analysis. North Korea: In response to North Korea s buildup of nuclear weapons and missiles, the communist nation was officially designated a state sponsor of terror by the Trump administration on Nov. 20. The Treasury Department followed up with sanctions on organizations and companies doing business with North Korea. Regulation reform: Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Nov. 17 the Department of Justice will cease the practice initiated by President Obama of issuing guidance memos to enact new regulations that sometimes have had the effect of changing federal laws. Iran: Trump issued a memorandum Nov. 16 determining that the U.S. has enough petroleum coming from countries other than Iran to permit a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products purchased from the mullah-led nation. China trade: During President Trump s visit to China in November, trade and investment deals worth more than $250 billion were announced that are expected to create jobs for American workers, farmers and ranchers by increasing U.S. exports to China and stimulating investment in American communities. Government transparency: The federal government on Nov. 9 made public more than 13,000 additional documents from its files on President John F. Kennedy s assassination, under orders from President Trump. It was the fourth released since October, when the president allowed the immediate release of 2,800 records by the National Archives. International liberty: President Trump proclaimed Nov. 7, the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, as the National Day for the Victims of Communism Religious liberty: The Department of Agriculture issued a guidance Nov. 6 that ensures Christians who opposed same-sex marriage would not be discriminated against for their beliefs. Job growth: President Trump announced in the Oval Office Nov. 2 that the semiconductor manufacturing company Broadcom Limited is moving its headquarters from Singapore to the United States. Broadcom is a Fortune 100 company that already employs more than 7,500 workers in the United States, and that number is expected to grow exponentially, with an estimated $20 billion to be spent on employees annually. Broadcom CEO Hock E. Tan said the decision to relocate Broadcom was driven by his desire to give back to this country that has given me so much. Government reform: EPA Director Scott Pruitt placed 66 new experts on three different EPA scientific committees who espouse more conservative views than their predecessors. To prevent conflicts of interest, Pruitt signed a directive Oct. 31 banning scientists who receive EPA grants from serving on the agency s independent advisory boards.OCTOBERJob growth: The White House announced Oct. 25 a new drone Integration Pilot Program that will accelerate drone integration into the national airspace system. Under the program, the Department of Transportation will enter into agreements with state, local, and tribal governments to establish innovation zones for testing complex UAS operations and to attempt different models for integrating drones into local airspace. Calling drones a critical, fast-growing part of American aviation, increasing efficiency, productivity, and jobs, the White House said they present opportunities to enhance the safety of the American public, increase the efficiency and productivity of American industry, and create tens of thousands of new American jobs. Government reform: Melania Trump, while embracing a more active and public schedule as first lady, is running one of the leanest East Wing operations in recent history, according to a Fox News analysis of White House personnel reports that found she has significantly reduced the number of aides on the first lady s office payroll in comparison to her predecessor, Michelle Obama. During President Obama s first year in office, 16 people were listed working for Michelle Obama, earning a combined $1.24 million a year. This year, just four people were listed working for Melania Trump as of June, with salaries totaling $486,700. Obamacare: Trump signed an executive order Oct. 12 that directs three federal agencies to rewrite regulations to encourage the establishment of cheaper health plans that can be purchased across state lines and are not bound by certain Obamacare rules and regulations. The directive would allow small-business owners, trade groups and others to join together to purchase health insurance. The plans would not be required to include benefits such as prescription drugs. Trump also wants to expand the sale of stopgap policies that don t cover pre-existing conditions, mental health services and other costly benefits. Consumer optimism: U.S. consumer sentiment unexpectedly surged to a 13-year high as Americans perceptions of the economy and their own finances rebounded following several major hurricanes, a University of Michigan survey showed Oct. 13. Iran nuclear agreement: President Trump announced Oct. 13 he will not certify the Iran nuclear deal and vowed that the U.S. would pull out unless changes are made. He also unveiled a new strategy, the culmination of nine months of deliberation with Congress and allies, on how to best protect American security from the rogue mullah-led regime. The plan includes denying the regime funding and any paths to a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles. The Department of the Treasury sanctioned more than 25 entities and individuals involved in Iran s ballistic missile program. The U.S. also sanctioned 16 entities and individuals that have supported Iran s military and Revolutionary Guard Corps in the development of drones, fast attack boats and other military equipment. United Nations: The United States is quitting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Heather Nauert, a State Department spokeswoman, announced the move will be made before the end of the year This decision was not taken lightly, and reflects U.S. concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO. Homeland security: The Supreme Court dismissed a major challenge to President Trump s travel ban on majority-Muslim countries Oct. 10 because it has been replaced by a new version, sending the controversy back to the starting block. The ruling is a victory for the Trump administration, which had asked the court to drop the case after Trump signed a proclamation Sept. 24 that replaced the temporary travel ban on six nations with a new, indefinite ban affecting eight countries. That action made the court challenge moot, the justices ruled. EPA reform: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced Oct. 9 a new set of rules that will override the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama s drive to curb global climate change. The agency is moving to undo, delay or block more than 30 environmental rules, the largest regulatory rollback in the agency s 47-year history. Immigration: The Trump administration submitted to Congress Oct. 8 a 70-point proposal that calls for increased border security, interior enforcement of immigration laws and a merit-based immigration system. It includes funding and completing construction of a southern border wall, improving expedited removal of illegal aliens, protecting innocent people in sanctuary cities, ending extended-family chain migration and establishing a point-based system for green cards to protect U.S. workers and taxpayers. Religious liberty: Attorney General Sessions on Oct. 6 issued guidance to all administrative agencies and executive departments regarding religious liberty protections in federal law in keeping with Trump s May 4 executive order. The guidance interprets existing protections for religious liberty in federal law, identifying 20 high-level principles that administrative agencies and executive departments can put to practical use to ensure the religious freedoms of Americans are lawfully protected. Attorney General Sessions also issued a second memorandum to the Department of Justice, directing implementation of the religious liberty guidance within the department. Among the principles are the freedom of religion extends to persons and organizations, Americans do not give up their freedom of religion by participating in the marketplace, partaking of the public square, or interacting with government and government may not restrict acts or abstentions because of the beliefs they display. Missile defense: The Department of Defense reprogrammed approximately $400 million for U.S. missile defense systems. Religious liberty: The Trump administration expanded religious and moral exemptions for mandated contraceptive coverage under Obamacare. Obama s signature legislation required that nearly all insurance plans cover abortion-inducing drugs and contraception, forcing citizens to violate sincerely held religious or moral beliefs, pay steep fines, or forgo offering or obtaining health insurance entirely. The interim final rules note that the United States has a long history of providing conscience protections in the regulation of health care entities and individuals with objections based on religious beliefs and moral convictions. The rule aligns with the U.S. Supreme Court s unanimous ruling protecting the Little Sisters of the Poor, which says the government cannot fine religious groups for following their faith. Immigration: Amid strong Democratic opposition, the House Homeland Security Committee gave first approval to the broad scope of President Trump s border wall Oct. 4, clearing a bill that would authorize $10 billion in new infrastructure spending, new waivers to speed up construction, and 10,000 more border agents and officers to patrol the U.S.-Mexico line. Space exploration: President Trump revived the National Space Council for the first time in 25 years to assist him in developing and implementing long-range strategic goals for the nation s space policy. The pace program will refocus on human exploration and discovery. Vice President Mike Pence, who chaired the National Space Council s Oct. 5 meeting, said the administration aims to establish a renewed American presence on the moon and from that foundation become the first nation to bring mankind to Mars. The administration also will renew America s commitment to creating the space technology needed to protect national security. And Pence pointed out the intelligence community reports that Russia and China are pursuing a full range of anti-satellite technology designed to threaten our U.S. military effectiveness. Abortion: The Office of Management and Budget on Oct. 2 issued a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) to strongly support the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36), which would generally make it unlawful for any person to perform, or attempt to perform, an abortion of an unborn child after 20 weeks post-fertilization. Protecting life: The president issued a statement Oct. 1 renewing the nation s strong commitment to promoting the health, well-being, and inherent dignity of all children and adults with Down syndrome. The president observed there remain too many people both in the United States and throughout the world that still see Down syndrome as an excuse to ignore or discard human life. He said Americans and their government must always be vigilant in defending and promoting the unique and special gifts of all citizens in need and should not tolerate any discrimination against them, as all people have inherent dignity. Protecting life: The Department of Health and Human Services has published a draft of a new strategic plan that states in its introduction that life begins at conception. The personhood of the unborn child is central to the abortion debate as even the justice who wrote the landmark Roe v. Wade opinion has acknowledged because, if established in law, it would nullify a right to abortion. The largely overlooked HHS strategic plan for 2018-22 states the agency accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception. Tax reform: Trump is working with Congress to lower taxes by seven points for the middle class and lower business taxes to a 15 percent rate.SEPTEMBERLower courts: Trump is filling up lower courts with lifetime appointees. In the estimation of Democratic official Ron Klain, a massive transformation is underway in how our fundamental rights are defined by the federal judiciary. Klain, lamenting Trump s moves, said the president is proving wildly successful in one respect: naming youthful conservative nominees to the federal bench in record-setting numbers. On Sept. 28, Trump announced an eighth wave of judicial candidates, with nine more names. Canada trade: In September, the Commerce Department, siding with Boeing, slapped a 219 percent tariff on the import of Canadian-made Bombardier jets, arguing they are supported by subsidies from the governments of Canada and the U.K., creating an unfair market. Korea trade: Trump began the process of renegotiating the United States-South Korea Free Trade Agreement in September. Climate: In September, Trump shut down a climate-change advisory panel under the direction of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that critics have contended was formed largely to promote President Obama s climate policies, arguing it lacked representation from those who think the empirical evidence points to human actions contributing little to global warming and that attempting to reduce it would slow the conquest of poverty around the world. The EPA also has decided not to renew the appointments of dozens of scientists on various scientific advisory panels. Economy: Household wealth reached a record high of $1.7 trillion in the second quarter due to rising property values and gains in financial assets, according to a Federal Reserve report. Homeland security: In September, Trump signed an executive order to enhance vetting capabilities and processes for detecting attempted entry into the United States by terrorists or other public-security threats. North Korea: After some 25 years of failed negotiations to contain Pyongyang s nuclear program, the communist regime s latest threatening actions were met by President Trump with a warning that military action, including a preemptive nuclear attack, would be considered. After Trump s warnings, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un backed off on his threat to attack the U.S. territory of Guam. North Korea: On Sept. 7, the U.S. fully deployed the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea despite objections from Pyongyang s chief ally, China. North Korea: In September, Trump signed an executive order significantly expanding U.S. authority to target individuals, companies and financial institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea, most of which are Chinese. Meanwhile, China s central bank has ordered banks in its massive banking system to immediately stop doing business with North Korea. United Nations: In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump told the global body in September, I put America first and you should do the same with your nations. In the speech, he also explicitly denounced socialism and communism, pointing to Venezuela as an example of what happens when socialism is successfully implemented. Immigration: President Trump, in September, rescinded Obama s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals order, which gave de facto amnesty to some 800,000 people who came to the country as children with their illegal-alien parents. Trump delayed implementing his order for six months to give Congress time to come up with a legislative solution. Stock markets: Through the first week of September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had 34 record highs. From Election Day to the Inauguration, the Dow rose more than 1,500 points. It climbed another 2,500 points from Inauguration Day, reaching more than 22,400 in mid-September, a gain of more than $4 trillion in wealth since Trump was elected. The Dow s spike from 19,000 to above 21,000 in just 66 days was the fastest 2,000-point rise ever. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ also have set all-time highs. On Aug. 7, the Dow closed with an all-time high for the ninth day in a row, the first time the market has had a run of that length twice under one presidency.For the entire list, go to WND | 0 | [
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FMD489 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: As chief compliance officer for a corporate owner of colleges, Robert S. Eitel spent the past 18 months as a top lawyer for a company facing multiple government investigations, including one that ended with a settlement of more than $30 million over deceptive student lending. Today, Mr. Eitel — on an unpaid leave of absence — is working as a special assistant to the new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, whose department is setting out to roll back regulations governing the college sector. The Education Department says Mr. Eitel has conferred several times with its ethics officer to avoid conflicts. But it says he is not precluded from having a voice on general issues and regulations that affect the college sector. Ethics experts said Mr. Eitel’s position, which has not been announced publicly, could nonetheless bump up against federal rules involving conflicts of interest and impartiality, particularly given his position as a vice president for regulatory legal services at Bridgepoint Education Inc. an operator of colleges, during federal investigations into the company. “It raises considerable red flags, especially due to the fact that this company was under investigation,†said Scott H. Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan investigative group. Mr. Eitel, an Education Department lawyer under President George W. Bush, has been a stalwart critic of federal regulation of both colleges and education under the Obama administration. A department spokesman, who requested anonymity, said Mr. Eitel is part of a “beachhead†team, paid staff members who are temporarily helping to lead federal agencies as the Trump administration gets up and running but do not require Senate confirmation. The spokesman said Mr. Eitel would recuse himself from policy decisions or discussions related to Bridgepoint and another former employer, Career Education Corporation. While on unpaid leave from Bridgepoint, the spokesman said, Mr. Eitel has also volunteered to recuse himself from weighing in on the department’s “gainful employment†regulation, which is intended to hold career schools accountable for their job placement records and is particularly despised by the industry. The spokesman would not comment on the prospects for a role for Mr. Eitel, who served as deputy general counsel from 2006 to 2009. Some jobs he could potentially be a candidate for, such as general counsel, would require Senate confirmation. Mr. Eitel did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, and Bridgepoint declined to comment on his work and status at the company, citing privacy concerns. Guidelines from the Office of Government Ethics bar federal employees from engaging in decisions directly affecting a company in which they have any financial interest. Even former employees without direct financial ties are subject to impartiality rules when they join the government. They are supposed to avoid doing anything that — in the eyes of a “reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts†— creates “the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards set forth,†and are advised to bring any potential conflicts to the agency’s ethics officer. Other industry insiders have also been brought into the agency, including Taylor Hansen, a former lobbyist for the sector’s trade association. “There’s no question that there’s a revolving door between the Education Department and the industries that it regulates,†said Rohit Chopra, former assistant director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a former special adviser to the secretary of education. “This is a bipartisan problem. †higher education has repeatedly been tarnished by scandal. But since the election in November, stocks in the sector have soared — Bridgepoint’s has climbed more than 40 percent — as President Trump’s White House has made clear that it is undertaking a campaign to slash government regulations. Ms. DeVos and other administration officials have indicated that they do not plan to continue President Barack Obama’s regulatory crackdown on colleges. Last week, the Education Department extended the deadline for vocational schools to appeal the agency’s application of the rule. That provision has been criticized by the industry as unfairly taking aim at colleges focused on helping the most disadvantaged students. While many graduates credit for their training and better employment prospects, other students complain that deceptive marketing persuaded them to enroll and to take on staggering debt for programs that failed to deliver promised skills and jobs. Bridgepoint — a publicly traded company that operates Ashford University and University of the Rockies, enrolls roughly 50, 000 students, and primarily offers online degrees — has come under frequent scrutiny by federal and state watchdogs. The Justice Department, according to a Bridgepoint filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is investigating whether the company violated Education Department limits that bar it from receiving more than 90 percent of its revenue in federal student aid. If a college is in violation for two years in a row, the Education Department can cut off further access to funds, the college’s lifeblood. In addition, the S. E. C. itself has been investigating Bridgepoint’s accounting practices. Attorneys general in California and Massachusetts are conducting separate investigations. And last month, Ashford received a final audit from the Education Department that said the company owed the agency $300, 000 as a result of the university’s miscalculation of federal student aid eligibility dating to 2006, an S. E. C. filing noted. The university has 45 days to appeal. In September, Bridgepoint reached a settlement with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to refund students $23. 5 million and pay an $8 million civil penalty to resolve an inquiry into whether students were deceived into taking out private student loans that cost more than advertised. Bridgepoint neither denied nor admitted the allegations. In 2014, before Mr. Eitel joined the company, Bridgepoint and Ashford agreed to pay $7. 25 million to settle charges by the Iowa attorney general that they had given students in that state incorrect information about the university’s program. Bridgepoint denied the allegations at the time. After leaving the Education Department in 2009, Mr. Eitel worked in private practice with Kent D. Talbert, who had been the agency’s general counsel. Mr. Eitel joined another education company, Career Education Corporation, in 2013, several months before it reached a $10. 25 million settlement with the New York attorney general over charges that it had previously inflated graduates’ job placement rates. He was also executive director of that company’s political action committee. He moved to Bridgepoint in July 2015. Mr. Eitel has written articles for conservative organizations like the Pioneer Institute and the Hoover Institution accusing the department of exceeding its authority. He opposed federal testing and standards for schools as a backdoor attempt at a national curriculum. Those views resonate on the right. In December, an article by Joy Pullman, managing editor of the conservative web magazine The Federalist, recommended that Ms. DeVos hire Mr. Eitel as part of a “ legal team. †| 1 | [
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FMD490 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Was a Karl Marx Banknote Released in Germany? Claim summaries: A photograph showing a young woman holding a Karl Marx bill (worth 0) is real, but it is a souvenir note rather than a genuine article of currency.
contextual information: In March 2018, an image showing a young woman holding what appeared to be an official piece of European currency featuring the face of German philosopher and Communist Manifesto co-author Karl Marx started making its way around the Internet: Communist Manifesto Karl Marx Internet "Zero Euros" are a popular souvenir item in Europe. Richard Faille started producing the realistic currency (which is authorized by the European Central Bank) in 2015, with the help of an official banknote printer called Oberthur Fiduciaire. Faille's operation expanded over the years and now Zero Euro notes are available in a number of European countries and commemorate a variety of topics, such as anniversaries, historical locations, city events, and notable individuals: authorized 2015 commemorate The Zero Euro is a souvenir banknote with authorized printing by the European Central Bank (ECB) and is on queue to be a popular in 2017 banknote collector markets. Its origins stem from France in 2015 after Richard Faille, creator of popular French currency souvenirs, decided to create euros that promote tourism. The banknotes are printed at a private fiduciary facility and they share many of the same characteristics of a real Euro except that they are marked as 0, hence the name, and are tested to ensure they cannot enter circulation as legitimate financial currency. The front of all zero euros is the same and it includes a white zero followed by the Euro sign to denominate no financial value. Then (from left to right) Brandenburg Gate, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, Sagrada Familia, Manneken Pis and the Mona Lisa. The pictured item is a souvenir that was produced by a tourism company in Trier, the German town where Marx was born, in honor of what would have been the author's 200th birthday in May 2018. The bill can be purchased for 3: bill On 5 May 2018 the city of Trier celebrates the 200th birthday of its famous son Karl Marx and on this occasion we have a bill from Trier Tourismus und Marketing GmbH. Norbert Kthler, the Managing Director of Trier Tourism and Marketing, acknowledged the humor in putting Marx on a worthless piece of currency: acknowledged Norbert Kthler, Geschftsfhrer der ttm, sagt zu dem Null-Euro-Schein: Das Souvenir setzt sich spielerisch mit der Marxschen Kapitalismuskritik auseinander. Und natrlich passen die Null-Euro-Scheine auch hervorragend zu Marx als Geldscheinmotiv. Norbert Kthler, Managing Director of TTM, says about the Zero Euro note: "The souvenir playfully deals with Marx's critique of capitalism. And of course, zero-euro bills also fit perfectly with the Marx motif." Satirical web site the Sacramento Brie also used an altered version of this image in an article that facetiously claimed that the zero value Marx bill was being used in Venezuela to boost the country's economy. Sacramento Brie Numis Magazine. "Zero Euro Banknote Creator Richard FAILLE Strikes Again!"
25 June 2017. Lokalo.de. "'Das Geld Wird Abgeschafft!' Trier Bietet Zum 200. Geburtstag Von Karl Marx Einen Null-Euro-Schein An."
17 March 2018. | 1 | [
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FMD491 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Twitter announced a new video deal with the National Football League (NFL) but the platform won’t be streaming games anymore. [Tech Crunch reports that Twitter “lost the deal to stream the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games this year to Amazon. †Instead, the social media site “will stream official NFL video and other content to fans including a new live digital show that will air on Twitter five nights per week, during football season. †“The show will be hosted by NFL Network talent and will focus on covering ‘breaking news, game highlights, key storylines, fantasy projections, team power rankings, updates,’†they continued, adding, “In addition, the live coverage will include Periscope broadcasts like play and sideline interviews, designed to give football fans access to teams on game days. †In a statement, Twitter expressed excitement at the opportunity to work with the NFL. “We are very excited to offer football fans around the world even more content on Twitter from the NFL,†said Twitter COO Anthony Noto. “This new collaboration will bring compelling live studio programs that discuss what’s happening in the NFL, unique live broadcasts before games, and the best NFL highlights to Twitter, alongside the NFL conversation. †The NFL also added that they have “every expectation†that the partnership will become “some of the most popular programming on Twitter. †“Twitter continues to be an important partner in accessing millions of highly engaged fans on digital media,†said the NFL’s chief media and business officer, Brian Rolapp. “We have every expectation that the new daily live show, produced by NFL Network and featuring some of our top analysts, will quickly become some of the most popular programming on Twitter. †Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 | [
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FMD492 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: UPDATE: AND SO IT BEGINS A police officer holds back for fear of being seen as racist:A police officer in Birmingham, Ala., was beaten unconscious by a suspect during a traffic stop last week because the officer did not want to be pilloried in the media as a racist for using force against a black man.The detective, who is still in the hospital recovering from injuries to his head and neck, now reveals that he hesitated to use force against Cunningham because of the post-Ferguson war on cops. A lot of officers are being too cautious because of what s going on in the media, the officer told CNN. I hesitated because I didn t want to be in the media like I am right now. Heath Boackle, a sergeant with the Birmingham Police Department, seconds this assessment. Cops are walking on eggshells because of how they re scrutinized in the media, Boackle said last week. Via: NR#CopsLivesMatter and someone better start holding these common thugs accountable before it gets really ugly. These cops lives are not gimmicks to be used to promote Obama s race war. These are human beings with families who put on that uniform every day, and in many cases are risking their lives to protect the very people who are killing or attacking them simply for being a white cop. It s time for America to make some noise and start calling out our Community Organizer in Chief for what has to be the most destructive underground orchestration of hate and division by a President our nation has ever witnessed Alabama police are outraged after photos of a detective beaten bloody by a suspect who stole his gun during a traffic stop were shared by witnesses and praised on social media.The suspect, 34-year-old Janard Cunningham, is charged with attempted murder for allegedly assaulting the six-year veteran following a traffic stop at a shopping center in Roebuck around 11am Friday.The plainclothes detective, who has not been identified, was taken to the hospital for treatment after the assault but has since been released and is recovering at home. Cunningham is said to have fled the scene after beating the officer until he didn t move anymore. A second suspect was released without any chargesCunningham was taken into custody after the assault and is being held at Jefferson County Jail while police have released a second suspect who was apprehended without filing charges.During the traffic stop, the detective pulled over Cunningham s SUV and told him to stay in the car while he waited for backup to arrive.The suspect disobeyed that order, questioned why he had been stopped and then struck the officer in the head with his own weapon, AL.com reported.The beating reportedly continued until the officer was no longer moving, with Cunningham then fleeing the scene.While the detective was brought to the hospital, US Marshals and other officers tracked down the suspect and took him into custody.After the arrest, photos of the bloodied detective began popping up on social media, with some commenters applauding what happened.Other Alabama officers were angered by the outpouring of support for the suspect.Birmingham police Sgt Heath Boackle, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said: He was laying there lifeless and people were standing around taking pictures. If the tables were turned, and that was a suspect lying there, they would be rioting. Via: Daily Mail | 0 | [
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FMD493 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Lauren McGaughy of The Dallas Morning News did a disgusting hit job on a top Texas lawyer and former judge. As a mother of 3 girls, I m offended by journalists like Lauren McGaughy, who wrote about a lawyer who was fired from his law firm for posting an article written by a rape survivor about her views on the now hijacked feminazi #metoo movement. It s sad to see the left grabbing onto the serious issue of sexual assault and doing the exact same thing they did to racism, using it as a political football, and trying to make it a Republican or conservative thing. If everyone s a racist, then no one is a racist. Lauren McGaughy, a reporter for Dallas Morning News didn t stop at exposing the firing of a top Texas lawyer over an article he shared on his personal Facebook page about the #MeToo movement (that was written by a rape survivor), she went after him with a bizarre vengeance, as though she had been personally harmed by his words. McGaughy didn t stop after pointing out that his law firm fired Andrew D. Leonie in a shameful case of censorship, she went on to tie him to conservatives and prove that he s actually (gasp) supported Republican candidates in the past. McGaughy took it a step further, and provided evidence that this horrible human being was also involved in litigating a case against are you ready? Muslim students praying in public schools!McGaughy wrote: Leonie was behind an AG s office letter that blasted a Frisco-area high school for allowing Muslim students to use an empty classroom to pray. The letter, which alleged the school might be infringing on the constitutional rights of its non-Muslim students, was called a political stunt by district staff who said the room was open to all students.From the Dallas Morning News article:A top lawyer in the Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton resigned Thursday after reports he wrote a Facebook post that called women s sexual misconduct allegations pathetic. The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday morning Associate Deputy Attorney General Andrew D. Leonie posted on Facebook this week: Aren t you also tired of all the pathetic me too victim claims? If every woman is a victim , so is every man. If everyone is a victim, no one is. Victim means nothing anymore. The post went up at 2:40 a.m. on Wednesday. By Thursday afternoon, Leonie had resigned. In a press release, Paxton s office said Leonie s exit was effective immediately. The views he expressed on social media do not reflect our values, Paxton s Director of Communications Marc Rylander wrote. The OAG is committed to promoting and maintaining a workplace that is free from discrimination and harassment. Leonie s post was removed late Thursday afternoon. His bio was changed from Associate Deputy Attorney General to Retired. The Dallas Morning News was fortunately, able to get a screen shot of the offensive post for everyone to see:His Facebook post linked to an article from the conservative website The Federalist titled, Can we be honest about women? The teaser to the article, which was written by a woman, states: Here s a little secret we have to say out loud: Women love the sexual interplay they experience with men, and they relish men desiring their beauty. He previously worked for Paxton s predecessor, Gov. Greg Abbott, as a regional chief for consumer protection and special litigator, according to Leonie s LinkedIn. His salary was listed as $150,984 in April on the Texas Tribune s salary explorer.Leonie s post comes as some conservatives question the increasing number of sexual harassment and assault claims against the nation s most powerful men in media, politics and business. While the stories have led to a number of high-profile resignations and apologies in the private sector, change is slower in the political realm, where it s usually up to voters to oust elected officials accused of sexual misconduct.In Texas, for example, Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold on Thursday decided not to run for reelection after allegations he made lewd comments and unleashed profanity-laced tirades on staffers. The decision was made after Farenthold declined to resign for weeks after news broke he once used $84,000 in taxpayer money to settlement a harassment claim. Accusations against state lawmakers as well as concerns over the ability of elected officials to harass with impunity have also led to new training requirements in the Legislature.OOPS! It looks likeThe Federalist-reported that Leonie s Facebook post linked to an article entitled Can We Be Honest About Women? authored by McAllister, who is a survivor of sexual assault. Here s a little secret we have to say out loud: Women love the sexual interplay they experience with men, and they relish men desiring their beauty, McAllister writes. Why? Because it is part of their nature. As a society, we need to encourage both sexes to become comfortable with who they are naturally and all the messy, uncomfortable, stumbling, tantalizing, and glorious twists and turns that come with it, she continues. Men and women need to show each other grace and respect as they engage as sexual beings in whatever sphere they interact. The article explicitly condemns sexual assault but argues that what some call sexual assault doesn t deserve that label and expanding its definition into innocent behavior hurts both men and women. In the past, McAllister has written about how our society has emboldened men in positions of power to think they can get away with sexually harassing or assaulting women.In a post entitled It s Not Up To Women To End Sexual Harassment, she explains why men need to step up their efforts to protect women from such evils. She has also criticized aspects of the #MeToo movement, writing recently that it is destroying trust between men and women because the social media movement denies human nature.The sexual tension between men and women will always exist, and if women assume a man s sexuality is a threat instead of a powerful complement to their own sexuality, they will always be on guard. In this environment of suspicion, there can be no privacy between a man and a woman. If there is any kind of interaction or discourse, even if it s not sexual, the man can t trust that the woman won t use it against him so communication is silenced. Fear is generated on both sides, and fear is the death of trust. It is also the death of love.Throughout McAllister s critiques of the #MeToo movement and discussions of sexual topics, she has repeatedly stated that women ought to be respected and that sexual assault and sexual harassment are wrong a fact left out of the numerous media accounts of Leonie s resignation and her article. | 0 | [
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FMD494 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: VIDEOS Alert on Russian border over alleged “Cyber Attacks” and “Propaganda” NATO is placing 300,000 troops on high alert near Russia's border who will be ready for deployment within two months By Whitney Webb - November 9, 2016 While the attention of the US public is decidedly focused upon the outcome of today’s presidential election, US-controlled NATO has announced an unprecedented escalating of its aggressive encirclement of Russia with military assets and troops. Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement that 300,000 troops have now been placed in a state of “high alert” in order to deter Russia who, according to NATO, has been “much more active in many different ways.” This new activity includes “Russia using propaganda in Europe among NATO allies,” which Stoltenberg says is “exactly the reason why NATO is responding […] with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War.” Adam Thomson, an outgoing representative to NATO, has estimated that the new 300,000 troops would be capable of deploying within 180 days, adding that speeding up the speed of deployment is of great importance. Though “propaganda” was cited as the main reason for the latest NATO build-up against Russia, the measures also come on the heels of Russia’s alleged involvement in “cyber attacks” on the US, despite no concrete evidence, as well as the nuclear war drills it has held domestically. In addition, NATO accused Moscow of deliberately provoking NATO by sending hundreds of paratroopers to a Serbian airbase, just 150 miles from where NATO forces were involved in disaster relief exercises in Montenegro. In response, Igor Sutyagin, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies told the UK’s Sunday Express that if “Russia wants to show that it can intimidate NATO, NATO saying to Russia, “If you show up, we’ll be there as well.” Frankly, all of these latest accusations coming from NATO are completely absurd. For one thing, the accusation that Russia was involved in “cyber attacks” or recent hacks is admittedly based on speculation by various US intelligence officials as no concrete evidence has been found to date implicating the Russians. In addition, the statement that said US Intelligence was “confident” Russia was responsible due to such speculation was authored by James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence who lied to Congress under oath regarding NSA surveillance. If Clapper lied to the Congress once, what’s to stop him from lying to the American people? Furthermore, NATO are the clear aggressors here as they have been carrying out an unprecedented build-up on Russia’s border since 2014, placing numerous troops and military hardware in close proximity to Russia as well as carrying out massive military drills. This, along with this newly announced escalation and the rise of neo-McCarthyism in the West, has convinced many, including Russians, that NATO and the West are preparing for a full-scale war against Russia. However, most ridiculous of all is that this latest NATO announcement of troop deployment was spurred by the use of so-called Russian “propaganda,” a clear attack on news outlets related to Russia such as RT and Sputnik. RT has already been feeling the heat as their UK branch had its bank accounts closed without warning. Though Russia’s supposed use of “propaganda” prompts a military response from NATO, the US and the West have suffered no consequence for its own obvious use of propaganda against Russia and its allies, including this TIME magazine cover . Propaganda was once illegal within the US, but the passage of the 2012 NDAA changed all that, meaning that the West is also definitely using propaganda. Where’s the outrage? The fact that NATO’s narrative is so blatantly one-sided should be enough proof to us all that there’s more to the story than NATO is letting on. | 0 | [
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FMD495 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: John Kerry Swears Claim summaries: Did Senator John Kerry refer to a Secret Service agent as a 'son of a bitch'?
contextual information: Claim: Senator John Kerry referred to a Secret Service agent as a "son of a bitch." . Origins: Prior to February 2004, Senator John Kerry was the polar opposite of a "household name" very few who didn't follow politics had even heard of him, let alone felt they had some sense of the man. Yet his emergence as the Democratic Party's front runner for the presidential nomination has stirred interest in the Senator, leaving a great many folks wondering what sort of fellow he is. Because few Americans will have a chance to make the Senator's acquaintance before being called upon to cast their votes in the November 2004 election, most will have to base their assessments of his character upon accounts given by others. Yet sorting fact from rumor is often a difficult task in that all too often the stories that appear to offer startling insight can't be proved or disproved; they exist as unverifiable anecdotes (e.g., the rumor that John Kerry ate some long-suffering pilot's pizza). pizza However, every now and then a story comes along that the news agencies have vetted. Which brings us to the "son of a bitch" incident of 18 March 2004. While snowboarding in Ketchum, Idaho, Senator Kerry was knocked over by one of the Secret Service men assigned to protect him. According to The New York Times, "Mr. Kerry [was] taken out by one of the Secret Service men, who had inadvertently moved into his path, sending him into the snow." A reporter and camera crew, who were following on skis, witnessed the collision but did not capture it on film. When asked about the crash, the Senator said, "I don't fall down. That son-of-a-bitch ran into me." Or "knocked me over," depending on which version you heard. (Actually, the Senator does fall down, at least according to The New York Post, which reported him as having taken a header on the wet floor of a convenience store the night before.) It probably needs to be pointed out the Senator referred to the agent in such fashion to a third party, as opposed to shouting his assessment into the bodyguard's face at the time of the accident. Yet, that Mr. Kerry didn't deliver the insult directly might speak worse of him. Though the etiquette mavens might not agree, it's almost understandable to call the other party to an accident all manner of cuss words in the immediate aftermath of a collision. Such an outburst is akin to dancing about swearing a blue streak after dropping a hammer on your foot, in that what is vented though heartily felt at the time is inappropriate and is realized to be such once the moment has passed. Yet, once there is distance between the accident and the fulmination, the "heat of the moment" defense no longer applies in that sober reflection is presumed to have taken place in the interim. Did sufficient time pass between the accident and the remark for the initial frustration over having been upended into the snow in front of an audience to have worn off? Or did one follow quickly upon the heels of the other? The New York Times characterized that span as "a moment later" whereas CNN said "He later used an expletive to describe the agent who knocked him down," a phrasing that implies the passage of a goodly chunk of time, even if it doesn't state so outright. Whether Senator Kerry had time to cool down or not, it was churlish of him to call the person charged with protecting his life a son-of-a-bitch, and foolhardy to address such remark to a reporter, an act guaranteed to propel the ire-filled comment into the morning editions. Discretion around members of the fourth estate needs to be second nature for those who look to make their careers in politics, in that an elected official given to blurting things willy-nilly is a liability to those he serves. In similar vein, if a man can't be troubled to speak well of his Secret Service cover, the very agents who will lay down their lives for him, he should at least be enough of a gentleman to refrain from describing them with cuss words. Some who have encountered this story have stopped to ponder if perhaps the Senator voiced his "son of a bitch" characterization in an affectionate or playful manner, as some are wont to do in reference to acquaintances they feel particularly close to. Or, that the remark had been delivered in a tone of pretend anger as a way of ruefully admitting how inglorious the collision must have appeared to onlookers. Yet those theories wash out upon examination of the earliest account. According to The New York Times' description of the incident, Senator Kerry wasn't joking he was pissed off: When asked about the mishap a moment later, he said sharply, "I don't fall down," then used an expletive to describe the agent who "knocked me over." "Sharply" does not describe any form of affectionate phrasing. Far from escaping public notice, Kerry's characterization of one of his government-appointed bodyguards became fodder for Jay Leno of The Tonight Show on 22 March 2004: But he's [John Kerry] quite an athlete. They showed him snowboarding. He's in Idaho and he's snowboarding. You see him on the news? He is pretty good. He's a good snowboarder. Man, he was going downhill faster than Howard Dean. It was unbelievable. There was an accident on the slopes. This is true. Kerry snowboarding. A skier collided with him, knocked him to the ground. Kerry got up, called the guy a son of a bitch. That's what he called the guy. In fact, today the FCC fined him $500,000 dollars and told him the next time he goes snowboarding it has to be with a five-second delay. President Bush has also been guilty of publicly labeling someone with a vulgarity in 2000 while then the Republican presidental nominee, his privately-meant assessment of a certain reporter as "a major league asshole" was picked up by a live microphone. Our Major League Remark describes what happened and how, plus offers a variety of points to ponder for those intent upon working out whether President Bush or Senator Kerry was the more boorish. Major League Remark Barbara "the boor war" Mikkelson Last updated: 2 September 2007 Sources: Crowley, Candy. "Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics." CNN. 19 March 2004. Halbfinger, David. "Amid Natural Splendor in Idaho, a Weary Kerry Gets Away From It All." The New York Times. 19 March 2004 (p. A20). Parker, Kathleen. "Be a Sport, Senator Kerry." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 31 March 2004 (p. A15). The New York Post. "Kerry Flopped Day Before, Too." 21 March 2004 (p. 10). The White House Bulletin. "Late Night Political Humor." 22 March 2004. | 1 | [
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FMD496 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Rachel Maddow had a big scoop, and she handled it her way. With a single tweet on Tuesday, Ms. Maddow, the MSNBC anchor, set the political world ablaze, announcing at 7:36 p. m. that she was poised to reveal previously unseen tax records from President Trump on her 9 p. m. program. (“Seriously,†Ms. Maddow added.) In the world of online news, 84 minutes struck some journalists as an awfully long time to wait. The White House took advantage, releasing a statement that detailed Mr. Trump’s tax figures from 2005 before MSNBC had a chance to air its own report. The Daily Beast and other news outlets ran items as well. Ms. Maddow, who is enjoying the biggest viewership of her show’s run, did not appear to mind. She opened her program on Tuesday as she usually does: with a deliberately paced, monologue, in this case reviewing Mr. Trump’s past refusal to release his taxes to catch up viewers on why this new revelation mattered. The revelation itself, however, was held back until after the first commercial break, a windup that some fellow journalists, eager for any bombshells, found exceedingly lengthy. “If you have news, Rachel please tell us. Soon. I’m not young,†tweeted Bob Ley, an ESPN anchor. “Of course — right after a commercial break. This is the worst episode of American Idol,†complained Zeke Miller, a White House reporter for Time. The wait, about 20 minutes in all, may have irked political reporters, but it was of a piece with the strategy Ms. Maddow has laid out for herself and her staff. In an interview last week, she described “a real sense of responsibility†to educate her 2. 6 audience, particularly those who may be casual consumers of the news. “There’s new people here every night,†Ms. Maddow said in her NBC office in New York. “I don’t feel like I’m doing a clubhouse update. I don’t feel like I’ve got a choir that was here at last night’s practice too. I definitely feel like, hey, if you’re new, let me meet you where you are. †Ultimately, the reporting that Ms. Maddow eventually aired on Tuesday night’s show — two pages from a single, federal tax return — was less groundbreaking than the mere fact that a portion of the president’s records had surfaced at all. The journalist who obtained the records, David Cay Johnston, a former tax reporter for The New York Times, said that the documents arrived “over the transom†in his mailbox. Mr. Johnston even speculated that Mr. Trump had sent the documents himself. The discussion between Ms. Maddow and Mr. Johnston veered into some odd directions, with Mr. Johnston mentioning a connection between Mr. Trump and the mob. And Ms. Maddow’s opening monologue raised lingering questions about links between Mr. Trump and Russia — questions that no simple 1040 form, like the one sent to Mr. Johnston, could address. It was not until the end of the program that Ms. Maddow invited on an NBC News political reporter, Hallie Jackson, who dialed in by telephone for a more sober analysis of the tax findings. By then, Ms. Maddow’s show was about to end. On Twitter, journalists complained that Ms. Maddow had overhyped her findings with the initial teasing tweet, noting that the information in the returns did not amount to a scandal. Others asked why so much of the focus was on Ms. Maddow and not the subject at hand. “The President of the United States has not released his tax returns,†wrote Peter Hamby, a journalist at Snapchat who previously worked for CNN. “Journalists are attacking Maddow for using her show to discuss this. †Good reviews or bad — scoop or no scoop — Ms. Maddow’s Tuesday program is sure to keep her at the center of the political conversation. Last week, Ms. Maddow achieved a ratings milestone, beating out Fox News heavyweights Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson among viewers aged 25 to 54, the most coveted demographic in television news. “Never imagined I would want to choose a restaurant based on their willingness to turn on Rachel Maddow’s show,†the Politico reporter Josh Dawsey wrote on Twitter on Tuesday evening. “Yet here we are. †| 1 | [
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FMD497 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Turkey escalated its opposition to a Kurdish independence referendum in northern Iraq on Tuesday, training tank guns and rocket launchers across the southern border and saying the break-up of its neighbors could lead to global conflict. Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said in Ankara next Monday s vote posed a major risk and Turkey would take every step needed to thwart any similar steps in its mainly Kurdish southeast. Iraqi Kurdish authorities have defied growing international pressure to call off the vote, which Iraq s neighbors fear will fuel unrest among their own Kurdish populations. Western allies say it could detract from the fight against Islamic State. A change that will mean the violation of Iraq s territorial integrity poses a major risk for Turkey, Canikli said. The disruption of Syria and Iraq s territorial integrity will ignite a bigger, global conflict with an unseen end. Kurds in north Syria, like those in Iraq, have capitalized on the turmoil in both countries to consolidate a degree of autonomy. Washington has supported Syrian Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State, despite Turkish protests. Turkish troops dug in on the southern border on Tuesday and turned their weapons toward Kurdish-run northern Iraq. Tanks and rocket launchers mounted on armored vehicles faced the Iraqi frontier, about 2 km (one mile) away. Mechanical diggers tore up agricultural fields for the army to set up positions in the flat, dry farmlands. The military drill, launched without warning on Monday, is due to last until Sept. 26, Turkish military sources said, a day after the planned referendum. A Reuters reporter saw armored vehicles carrying heavy weaponry and soldiers taking positions in specially dug areas, their weapons directed across the border. A generator and satellite dish could be seen at one location. The show of force reflects the scale of concern in Turkey, which has the largest Kurdish population in the region, that the vote could embolden the outlawed Kurdish PKK which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey s southeast since 1984. The Turkish air force has frequently struck against PKK units operating from the mountains of northern Iraq and limited detachments of Turkish infantry have made forays across the frontier in the past. Turkey also sees itself as protector of Iraq s ethnic Turkmen minority, with particular concern about Kirkuk where Kurds have extended their control since seizing the oil city when Islamic State overwhelmed Iraqi forces in 2014. Police deployed overnight in Kirkuk to prevent any outbreak of ethnic violence, residents said. The standoff has hit the Turkish lira, which weakened beyond 3.5 to the dollar on Tuesday for the first time in four weeks. The increasing tension before the referendum in northern Iraq continues to effect lira negatively, Kapital FX Research Assistant Manager Enver Erkan said. Cross-border trade, however, appeared to continue. Despite the nearby military maneuvers a kilometer-long line of traffic, mostly trucks and cargo, queued to enter Iraq at the Habour border gate. Turkey s strong economic ties to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) will weigh on any response from Ankara. The KRG pumps hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day through Turkey and has approved plans for Russian oil major Rosneft to invest in pipelines to export gas to Turkey and Europe. The military exercises came as Turkey, the central government in Baghdad and their shared neighbor Iran all stepped up protests and warnings about the independence referendum in the semi-autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq. The United States and other Western countries have also voiced concerns and asked Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani to call off the vote, citing fears the referendum could distract attention from the fight against Islamic State militants. Iraq s Supreme Federal Court ordered Barzani to suspend the vote and approved Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi s demand to consider the breakaway of any region or province from Iraq as unconstitutional , his office said on Monday. Turkey has brought forward to Friday a cabinet meeting and a session of its national security council to consider possible action. | 1 | [
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FMD498 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Ketanji Brown Jackson, a federal trial judge in Washington, is being considered to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, the National Law Journal reported on Friday, citing a lawyer who was contacted as part of the vetting process. The unidentified lawyer was contacted this week and was asked about Jackson’s tenure on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the context of her being a potential nominee for the Supreme Court, the Journal said. The lawyer described the conversation, which lasted less than 30 minutes, as a “preliminary inquiry,†the Journal reported. The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the Journal story. President Barack Obama is expected to announce a nominee in the next several weeks to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. Scalia’s death left the court with four liberals and four conservatives, and Republican leaders in the Senate have vowed to block anyone Obama nominates. The Senate must confirm the nominee. Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, a moderate Republican, took himself out of consideration for appointment to the Supreme Court this week after his name surfaced as a possible nominee. If nominated and confirmed Jackson, 45, would be the first African-American woman on the Supreme Court. She was confirmed to the federal district court in Washington in March 2013. During her confirmation hearing, she received support from U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who is related to her by marriage, the Journal reported. Jackson’s husband, Patrick Jackson, is the twin brother of Ryan’s brother-in-law William Jackson. Jackson served as a federal public defender in Washington and then at a law firm. In 2010, she was appointed to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. | 1 | [
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FMD499 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The head of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee introduced legislation on Thursday to cut cost overruns at the Pentagon by overhauling the way it buys everything from common off-the-shelf goods to services and intellectual property. Representative Mac Thornberry, a Texas Republican, told reporters, “if you’re buying office supplies, you ought to be able to go on Amazon and do it.†“The current acquisition process prohibits rapid purchases of goods at the best prices because†the Department of Defense is restricted to using expensive and onerous contracting processes, committee aides said in a statement about the bill. Thornberry hopes to spark debate about the initiative and then wrap it into the annual National Defense Authorization Act, a broader bill that sets policy for the Defense Department each year, committee aides told reporters. Thornberry and the committee drafted the legislation after more than a year of examining billions of dollars in cost overruns, schedule delays and other problems that have plagued defense procurement programs. The legislation includes measures that would allow existing business to business e-commerce markets, such as Amazon.com Inc or W W Grainger Inc, to sell the military commercial off-the-shelf products such as staplers or forklifts. This would expand procurement options beyond the Pentagon’s current e-commerce program, EMall. The legislation also aims to make the Defense Department’s acquisition system more proactive, agile, transparent and innovative, committee aides said, noting that further measures would be proposed in coming years. This bill would consolidate reporting for services contracts and allow for more transparency and accountability for program managers, committee aids said. In 2015, the Pentagon spent $274 billion on contracts of which $144 billion, about 53 percent, was spent on contracted services. The bill also incentivizes the Pentagon to consider purchasing intellectual property earlier in the acquisition cycle. It was hoped that purchasing intellectual property, such as technical data for missiles, while an acquisition process is still competitive would lead to lower overall costs. Committee aides said the legislation was crafted with input from acquisition officials, industry and outside experts. “It is essential to be more agile in the face of technology that changes to fast and threats that change so fast,†Thornberry told reporters. | 1 | [
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